Oracle
by Spirit of a Rose
Summary: Before the apocalypse, before vampires, there was the First and his Oracle.
1. Baptism of Blood

Part One:

The Past

They that worshipped when the world was theirs and thine, They whose words had power by thine own power to draw thee Down from heaven till earth seemed more than heaven divine. For the shades are about us that hover When darkness is half withdrawn And the skirts of the dead night cover The face of the live new dawn. For the past is not utterly past Though the word on its lips be the last, And the time be gone by with its creed When men were as beasts that bleed, As sheep or as swine that wallow, In the shambles of faith and of fear…

—A.C. Swinburne, The Last Oracle

**_I. Baptism of Blood_**

**She remembers the pain.**

Fire raging through her veins. Thirst racking her throat. The angel smiling down at her and cradling her face in both hands to muffle her screams.

The bittersweet taste of copper on her lips. Baptism of blood. The starless sky exploding with light. Suddenly being able to _see _—the universe gaping open, the heavens spreading wide, hell clawing at her feet.

The light burned. Trying to cover her eyes, sobbing as the world went black again.

The angel's hand on her shoulder. A voice gentler than a whisper, jarring her bones. _Little one._

No, she sobbed. She told him her name. She had known it, once.

The angel gave her a radiant smile and touched her face with a slender pale fingertip. The name became meaningless, forgotten.

_Mantaia, _he said. _Oracle, in your language...My oracle. _Again the beatific smile, a pause. _My Aia. _


	2. 856 BC

_856 B.C. _

_Ionia, Greece_

The sun-god's chariot is just beginning to sink behind the distant foothills by the time she finds the meeting-spot. No one gives her a second glance as she settles down in the shade of the well and rests her back against its worn stones. They're all too absorbed by the storyteller on the other side of the well. She tugs her faded scarf tighter over her forehead anyway.

The agora is almost empty now. A few farmers are still covering what's left of their grains and figs inside their carts and harnessing their donkeys, but most of the dusty plaza is deserted. The small cluster of people crowded around the well are schoolboys tarrying on their way home and women drawing water in the evening shade.

She peers over the rim of the well, curious. The man sitting on the well-curb, his back to her, is stooped with age, his white beard tucked low on his chest, but he gestures animatedly as he speaks, and his voice is that of a much younger man, deep and honeyed: "Like the generations of leaves are the lives of mortal men. Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth" —he sweeps a hand expressively in front of him— "Now the living timber bursts with the new buds and spring comes round again. And so with men: as one generation comes to life, another dies away." His tone lapses into the steady sing-song of verse. "So the Greeks fought on while the gods watched, immortal on their mountain, and the Fates cut the pitiless threads, and a son died before his father, while his father waited at home for the return of the next generation."

Aia leans closer to listen, her eyes wide. She's heard storytellers in the agora before, but never one that sung in meter like Sigama. Only _aoidos_, epic poets, sang the songs of the gods, but _aoidos _lived in king's courts and drank from Helicon's stream. They did not wander through small hill towns like Itytos and wear ragged tunics and worn sandals.

The _aoidos'_ voice cracks. For a moment he sounds like an old man. "Perhaps more tomorrow," he says, and nods to the woman who folds a bronze coin into his rough palm. "Gods smile on you, mistress."

The women shoulder their water jars and head home, chattering. The schoolboys jostle past, joking and laughing. Aia tugs on her headscarf and rests her chin on her knees with a sigh. Perhaps Sigama will come tomorrow instead, and she can listen to more. Or she can ask him if he's heard it before. Sigama knows everything.

"Pardon," a hoarse voice says, "but could you draw me some water?"

Aia looks up, startled, and quickly drops her gaze again. The _aoidos_ smiles at her from across the well. "I'm afraid these hands are too dusty to drink from," he says mildly, stretching out his hands to her. Now she sees his eyes, milky white and sightless beneath bushy white brows. She reaches wordlessly for the wooden ladle nearby.

The _aoidos_ takes a long draught, then splashes the rest on his hands and face. "Thank you," he says with a sigh, and pats the stone curb beside him. "Sit and rest with me awhile."

Aia lowers herself down beside him. The agora is abandoned now. She tugs her scarf off and slips it around her thin shoulders. Her white hair tumbles free around her face, hiding the slight point to her ears. The long shadows have brought a chill to the dusky air. The old man settles his cloak more firmly around himself. "Rare to find a boy so quiet," he remarks, gazing into the distance.

"Rare to find an _aoidos_ in such a small town," she murmurs. The old man sighs. "Ah, forgive me. I did not realize you were a girl. Are you waiting for your father or brothers?"

"My father," she says softly.

"Will he come soon?"

"Yes."

The _aoidos_ nods. "What did you think of the song?"

"It was beautiful," she says simply. "Is it very long?"

He smiles. "Very long. That was only a very small part of it. Great heroes have short lives, so their stories must be very long to make up for it. And there are many great heroes to tell of."

"I've heard their names before," she says, still tasting the exotic sounds on her lips. "Achilleus. Hektor. Troy."

The old man chuckles. "How old are you, child?"

"Twelve summers," she says after a moment of hesitation. He nods gravely. "These things took place during the days of my ancestors, gods grant them peace. They are almost forgotten now. It is time we remember them again."

"What is your name?" she asks impulsively. He chuckles again. "I'm only an old blind man who tells stories. Their names will live on, not mine."

"The gods remember," she says automatically.

"The gods are dead," a familiar voice says smoothly behind them. Aia jumps to her feet, yanking the scarf back over her hair. "Sigama!"

Sigama smiles absently down at her. "Aia," he says, tugging her scarf over a stray white wisp with firm fingers. "And who is this?"

"An _aoidos_," she murmurs, clutching his arm. "He tells beautiful stories, Sigama. He's blind –he didn't see anything."

He strokes her scarf. "You sound so frightened. Why are you scared?" He glances up. "What's your name, old man?"

The _aoidos_ climbs slowly to his feet and faces them. "I am called Homer," he says mildly. "Are you the child's father?"

Sigama smiles down at Aia. "Yes," he says. "My daughter seems taken with your stories, old man. Would you stay at my villa for a few days? Provide us with a few old songs to warm the hearth?"

The _aoidos_ bows his head regally. "I would be grateful to share your hearth and hospitality."

"Excellent. Come, Aia. Escort the _aoidos_ to the villa. I have some business to attend to in town."

The old man's bushy brows furrow. "It is almost nightfall. Surely everyone will already have locked their doors."

Aia takes his arm and tugs him towards the main road. "This way, sir," she says quietly. Sigama's pale gaze flickers over the old man's milky eyes. A smile tugs at his corners of his mouth. He lifts a pale finger to his lips as wings explode from his white tunic.

The _aoidos' _head snaps in his direction. "What is that?" he asks sharply. Sigama keeps a finger to his lips as his shredded robes fall to the ground in a whisper of fabric. Feathers rustle as they uncurl around him, covering his bare skin in ivory plumage. Six massive wings unfurl from his back, two from his shoulders, four centered around his spine. Two smaller pairs bloom behind his pointed ears, blending with his long white hair. It cascades around him, tumbling loose from its ties in sleek strands like silk. His smile widens, baring slender curved fangs. "Shall I bring you a treat tonight, Aia?"

She nods, avoiding his gaze. The _aoidos _grips her arm. "What was that noise, child?"

"My father startled some chickens," she says. "This way. Our villa is several towns over, but my father has some horses nearby."

"Do you always travel so far at night?" he wonders, letting her lead him through the deserted town. Aia doesn't answer.

The servant waiting with their horses sees them and bows to Aia. She hurries forward with a glad cry. "Iason!"

"Hello, Aia," he says affectionately, straightening her headscarf. "Who is this?"

"Homer," the old man replies before she can answer, inclining his head in their direction.

"He'll be staying with us for a few days," Aia explains, taking the old man's arm again. "He's an _aoidos_."

Iason's eyes widen. "Gods bless, master," he says respectfully, bowing. "I look forward to your stories. Here, your horse. You both must be tired."

Aia waits while Iason helps the old man onto a horse. He unties the reins from Homer's mare and wraps them around his own saddle horn before mounting and leaning down to offer Aia a hand. She takes it and lets him pull her up in front of him, clutching the saddle horn as the gelding dances uneasily under the extra weight. Iason wraps an arm lightly around her waist and clucks to the mare. She trails behind them as they break into a walk. "It's almost fifty stadia to the villa," he says aloud for the aoidos' benefit. "Let me know if you want a rest." He squeezes Aia lightly. "That goes for you too, mistress."

Homer nods. Aia folds her arms over Iason's and settles back against him. "Wake me when we arrive," she murmurs with a yawn, and closes her eyes. Iason's arm tightens around her. "Sleep well."

* * *

The world burns.

The child stands in the middle of the inferno, clutching a wooden sword. The toy blazes in his blackened hands.

She reaches out. The boy looks up. Green eyes shine dully through a tangle of black hair. His mouth twists and quivers. She reaches for the toy, for his blackened and burned hands.

The boy's green eyes well with tears. The tears turn black and drip down his face in inky trails as black wings explode from his back and salt rains from the blazing sky.

She wakes with a start. Iason is shaking her gently. "Aia. We've arrived."

She nods dazedly. He dismounts and lifts her down like a child, catching the reins as the mare swings her head with a snort. Hostlers are already coming forward to take their mounts, their faces pale blurs in the flickering torchlight from the main gates.

The old man dismounts without help and waits calmly for Iason to take his arm and guide him through the gates. A servant leads the way, a torch held high. The world turns into a blur of chattering handmaids and the glare of the hearth as her women sweep her past. She catches a glimpse of the old man being led away to the guest chambers, of Iason issuing orders for warmed wine and fresh clothes and a bath to be drawn. Then she is in her chambers, a fire kindled in the stone hearth, and her maids are tugging her dusty tunic off and scrubbing her down with scented cloths and wrapping a silk robe around her and tucking her into her bed.

She is asleep before they close the door behind them, a warm, exhausted slumber unbroken by visions.


	3. First Blood

**_First Blood_**

She remembers the first few days after being Turned.

The room is dark. A candle flickers weakly by the door. She twists and untwists her ragged dress, waiting.

The door rattles. There's the thump of the bolt being removed, the servant's hushed voice, then the door opens. Sigama steps inside. Even without his wings, he fills the doorway, a tall, slender figure clothed in white like an angel. Suddenly the dark room seems a little brighter, a little warmer.

"I brought you a gift," he says, coming closer. She stands, leaning on the stool. Her legs tremble. Her throat is scraped dry.

Sigama nods to the servant hovering behind him. The man beckons, his bearded face grim. Two more servants drag a limp figure between them, into the room. They place the body on the floor and hurry back out. The bearded man follows, closing the door behind him.

Sigama gestures to the body. "Drink, my child."

She takes a trembling step closer. The body stirs, small hands scraping the dirt floor. It lifts its head. Dark eyes blink dazedly up at her through matted black hair. She recoils.

"Drink," Sigama urges. She covers her face. "I can't."

Cool fingers lift her chin up. She reluctantly lowers her hands, avoiding his gaze. "I can't," she whispers again.

"Aia." Sigama's voice is soft and musical, almost a whisper. She feels it like a shudder in her bones. His eyes pierce her, pale, almost translucent, the irises a silvery grey, the pupils slitted and colorless. "Mantaia, my Aia, my oracle. You are no longer human. They are mere animals, mere beasts compared to you and I." His tone hardens. "Drink."

She shakes her head, tears welling up in her eyes. Sigama sighs.

The child flinches dully as he reaches down and grasps its ragged shirt and lifts it into the air. The torn fabric cuts into the child's throat. He chokes, starts to flail numbly. Sigama smooths the matted black hair away from his throat delicately and sinks his fangs deep into flesh and muscle.

The child gurgles, thrashes, dirty hands clawing the air, smearing dust and filth onto Sigama's spotless robes. He jerks his head savagely. Something snaps. The child goes limp. Sigama tosses the body at her feet. "Drink," he repeats almost gently.

"Please," she whispers, shuddering. Sigama's pale lips thin into a tight white line. He reaches down, hauls the dangling body into the air again, and sucks a mouthful of the blood streaming from its throat. She flinches violently as he grabs her arm, but she doesn't resist as he tilts her face up roughly and presses his red-stained mouth over hers.

Hot copper burns her tongue and throat. She chokes. Sigama releases her and she crumples, gagging. Her body convulses, once, twice. Bloody vomit spatters the dirt and the ragged hem of her dress. Sigama turns his delicate features away and wipes the blood from his chin with his sleeve. "Interesting," he remarks, and shrugs off his stained overrobe. He tosses it to her. The musky scent of spices and oils muffles the sickening stench filling her nose and clinging to her tongue. She clutches the robe around herself, trembling.

The door swings open, spilling warm torchlight into the room. Sigama pauses in the doorway. "Have her cleaned up and taken to my room," he says without looking back, and sweeps out.


	4. 432 BC

_432 B.C._

_Athens, Greece_

Aia shades her eyes against the burning midday sun. The carved pillars rising above her gleam like bronze, the pale stone painted gold by the light.

"Impressive, isn't it?" a man nearby remarks in a thick Theban accent, noticing her stare. "The wife and I came to see the ceremony. Nine years to build it, can you believe it? The Acropolis took fifty. They say Pericles used his own fortune to bribe the architects." The man shakes his head. "Incredible."

"That's amazing," Rigor says, his dark eyes shining. "What was the ceremony like? How many cattle did they sacrifice? Did Pericles make a speech?"

"What, you weren't there? All of Athens and half the countryside was out to see it. They had priests and priestesses from every temple in Attica. The sacrifices went on for three days. Were you living under a rock, lad?"

"We just arrived from Dacia," Urd says, his soft voice stumbling over the still-unfamiliar Greek. He draws stares, unlike Rigor. His rich hazel skin and the jet-black hair falling into his eyes mark him as a foreigner, even in this mixed crowd. His eyes stand out the most: pale blue, almost violet, the product of an Egyptian mother and Sumerian ancestors. A passing woman meets his gaze, shivers, and makes a sign against evil and hurries on.

"Dacia, hm? That's a journey. Never been that way myself," the Theban goes on. "Still, it's Greek proper, not like some of these barbarian scum." His gaze flicks over Urd, his lip curling slightly. Urd lifts his eyes from the ground and stares back calmly. The Theban's rough farmer's tan goes a little pale. "Zeus almighty," he whispers, and backs away into the crowd.

Rigor makes a face. "I told you we should have left him at home."

Aia frowns at him. "Don't be rude, Rigor."

"Yes, m'lady," he says with exaggerated obquience, and dodges her elbow, grinning. She scowls up at him. "I'll leave you at home next time, just wait."

"What, and keep him?" Rigor chortles. "He can barely rub two words together in Greek. Besides, he draws too much attention. Our master likes to keep his business quiet. People'll remember his ugly mug." He nudges Urd mockingly. Urd doesn't react, just stares at him with grave violet eyes. There's intelligence in them, but little emotion. Aia wonders how much he understands. He may not know Greek yet, but the insult in Rigor's tone is unmistakable.

Rigor laughs. "See?" he says. "Why our master wants him, of all people-"

"Quiet," Aia says softly and sharply. Rigor looks taken aback. "I'm not questioning our master's wisdom," he says hastily. "But surely those our master chooses should be the best among men, the most worthy, not barbarians or children-" he stumbles, realizing his mistake. Aya's eyes flare. "Are you questioning my worthiness, Rigor of Dacia?"

"Of course not, m'lady," he says swiftly, regaining his composure. "I merely meant-"

She takes a step forward, cutting him off. He's forced to step back to keep her from crushing his toes. "Perhaps you think that just because you're the child of some ruling family in some tiny Dacian province, you are important," she says softly. "Perhaps you think that matters to your master."

Rigor flushes dully. A spark of humiliated anger burns in his dark eyes, but he has the sense to not interrupt her. Aia looks up at him levelly, her pale crimson eyes narrowed. "A few words might make your master reconsider your worthiness, Rigor of Dacia. Do not forget that. You are not one of my kind yet."

He flinches as though she slapped him. Ah. So that's what gets under his skin. She smiles, a cold humorless curling of her lips. "Do not forget," she says, and turns away.

Urd moves suddenly. She hadn't seen Rigor curl his fingers into a fist –the movement was barely noticeable– but Urd grips his wrist, warning in his pale eyes. Rigor jerks his arm away with a growled curse, and Urd calmly lets go and steps back, expressionless once more. He doesn't take his eyes off Rigor.

Aia raises an eyebrow. Urd has been quiet ever since Sigama bought him from a slave market in Dacia two months ago. He gave her his name when she asked (in Dacian, then halting Egyptian) and ventured a word or two in Greek when needed, but he had never responded to Rigor's taunts before.

But Sigama had chosen him, and Sigama could see things even she couldn't. "Urd," she says mildly, and Urd turns those strange eyes on her expectantly. She beckons. "We should return to the villa," she says, and gives the towering Parthenon one last glance. Nine years. Humans really are amazing.

Urd moves wordlessly to her side. Rigor falls into place on her right, still grumbling under his breath in Dacian. She smiles up at Urd. "Come," she says, and impulsively smiles at Rigor, too. "Let's go home."


	5. Yu

**_Yu_**

She remembers the boy.

Green eyes gleam dully under tangled black bangs. The boy's tunic is a filthy rag hung over one bony shoulder, his skin so smeared with dirt he looks black.

"This is Yuu," Sagama says, and pushes the boy forward. He stumbles towards her on scrawny legs and drags those dead eyes up to hers. He doesn't speak.

"Hello," she says softly, almost whispering. The boy stares at her through his tangled bangs. She's seen animals in cages in the marketplace, waiting to be slaughtered, crouched behind wooden bars with listless empty eyes. The boy's eyes reminds her of them.

"Yuu is going to live with us from now on," Sagama says. "He's special, like you. Aren't you, Yuu?"

Yuu moves slightly. It's hard to tell if the movement was a nod or a shudder. Sagama smiles. "From now on, you will be with Yuu at all times unless I tell you otherwise. Understand, Aia?"

She looks up in shock. She hasn't been allowed to leave Sagama's rooms since she was first brought here. She isn't even allowed to speak to the slaves who bring her food and fresh clothes and wash her. "Does this mean I can leave your chambers?" she blurts out, and covers her mouth, eyes wide.

Sigama chuckles. "Yes. As long as you don't leave the villa. But you have to always be with Yuu. Do you understand?"

"Yes," she says. Sigama pats her head. "Good girl. Take Yuu to the maidservants. He needs a good wash. Make sure you both get something to eat."

"Yes sir," she says, turning away. Sigama's hand moves to her chin and tilts her face back up to his. "And Aia...make sure to tell me what you see."

She swallows over the sudden knot in her throat. "Yes, sir."

"Good girl," he says again, and smooths a thumb lightly over her lower lip. "Run along now."

She nods and grabs the boy's hand and flees the room.

* * *

She doesn't slow down until one of the walls falls abruptly away and the cold stone floor gives way to sun-warmed flagstones. Columns twined with vines frame the open courtyard on her right. Flowers bloom under low-bent fruit trees, their colors so bright they hurt her eyes. A slave bent over one of the knotted pear trees straightens up and shades his eyes to stare at them as she takes her first breath of free air in months.

Yuu tugs faintly at her hand. She hadn't realized she was still holding on to him. She lets go quickly, resisting the urge to wipe her now-filthy palm on her spotless white robes. "Sorry," she says. Yuu stares at her blankly, his hand falling limply to his side. Here, in the shaded sunlight, she realizes just how young he is. Younger even than her. His small, hunger-pinched face is still round with baby fat beneath all the grime and street dust. His green eyes are huge in their shadowed sockets.

"Are you hungry?" she asks at last, uncertainly. Yuu stares uncomprehendingly at her. She mimes eating. "Food? Hungry?" She fumbles for the few words of Phoenician she knows from one of the maidservants. The boy looks more Iberian than Phoenician, with his pale skin and jet-black hair, but she doesn't know any Iberian. "Food?"

Yuu blinks. She sighs and turns to the slave. "Um…"

The slave starts violently, his eyes almost as wide as Yuu's. She pushes her pale hair back self-consciously, realizing how strange she must look. One of the maidservants used to make the sign against evil when she saw her, until Sigama noticed. That maidservant never came again.

The slave is still gaping at her. She turns away, flushing dully. "Let's go," she mutters to Yuu –except Yuu isn't there anymore.

Her blood turns cold. All she can think of is Sigama's luminescent colorless eyes fixed on hers, the steel in his tone as he said _be with Yuu at all times_. She whirls around just as she hears the slave yelp. "Hey! You can't be here!"

She turns back to see Yuu drop from the pear tree's gnarled branches and tumble to the ground with something in his arms. The slave lunges and misses, cursing. Yuu darts between his grasping hands and crashes through a hedge to her. The slave crashes to a stop right behind him, one wary eye on her as he curses.

"Food," Yuu says in perfect Greek, and offers her a pear. Now it's her turn to stare blankly.

"Aetius!" the slave shouts, still keeping a safe distance from her. She looks back at him and he flinches and makes a hasty sign against evil. Somewhere in the distance a man yells back. Footsteps pound towards them.

She takes a deliberate step forward between the slave and Yuu. The man backs away and accidentally meets her eyes. He goes pale beneath his rough tan. She knows what he sees. She's stared at her reflection a thousand times in the polished bronze mirror in Sigama's closet: a girl with baby fat still clinging to her cheeks and a child's snub nose and wide eyes, pale eyes, with a blind man's clouded irises –red eyes, blood-eyes. A child with long white hair tumbling to her waist and skin white as marble, a child carved from stone.

For a split tempting second she wants to smile and show her fangs. The thought of Sigama quickly kills the temptation. Instead she turns back to Yuu. He's still holding out the pear, his head cocked to one side, his eyes wide. A spark of life flickers somewhere in their depths...or maybe it's just the sunlight turning his unnaturally dark irises vivid green. He tilts his head, his scraggly bangs falling across his face. She takes the pear and reaches for his free hand.

"Come on," she says. "Let's get you cleaned up."

Yuu trails obediently behind as they leave the courtyard and the sputtering slave and go back into the dark villa.


	6. 433 BC

_433 B.C._

_Athens, Greece_

They set off for Thorikos a week later, once the Parthenon has been consecrated and the final celebrations finished.

"Where is our train?" Rigor asks, squinting in the flickering torchlight. "The guards, the slaves, the mules and supplies?"

Aia slips her small satchel over one shoulder and closes the gate softly behind her. The inn guard nods blearily and mutters a blessing as she presses a coin into his rough palm and beckons for Rigor and Urd to follow. "We have horses. And I bought more supplies in the marketplace with Urd while you were chasing skirts in Aphrodite's temple," she adds, pulling her hood over her pale hair.

"'Aphrodite en kopois'," Rigor says dreamily, either oblivious or ignoring the mild rebuke. "That's what they call her in this city. 'Aphrodite of the Gardens'. Beautiful, isn't it? Back in Dacia we go by her Cytherean name, 'Philommeides', the lover of smiles. I hear the Spartans and Thracians claim she was born from Ouranos'–"

"Did you spend the entire time talking to the priests?" Aia asks skeptically. Urd, who has been listening intently to Rigor's rambling, gives her a reproachful look. Rigor just smiles. "My father always said it's good to pay attention to other cultures," he says. "You never know what you may learn. For instance, I learned from a merchant today while you and the slave were off shopping that they've been having trouble with bandits. Apparently travelers have been getting attacked on the main roads. Which makes traveling without guards suicidal."

"We are a small group, with no baggage to speak of," Aia says calmly. "They won't bother us."

"Two men and a child," he protests. "No offense, my lady– we both know what you are– but no one else will. Traveling like this is ridiculous. In Dacia–"

"Yes, in your kingdom we would have a score of soldiers and a train a mile long," Aia interrupts. Rigor flushes, his black eyes narrowing. A part of her regrets the taunt; she knows him well enough by now that she can foresee it ending badly if she keeps treating him like a spoiled child. But right now she is exhausted and sore from months of travel and too many long days without sleep and besides, she is tired of hearing of Dacia. "It will be fine. It is only five days to Thorikos, and we will be traveling through the countryside after the first day anyway."

"My lady," Urd says in his soft voice, speaking up for the first time, "He is right. I have heard the merchants talking. Traveling alone is dangerous. We should wait until morning and find a merchant train or noble-folk to travel with." He pauses politely, and tilts his head. "My lady?"

Aia closes her mouth abruptly. "Very well," she says, trying to hide her surprise. Rigor is still gaping. Urd's Greek is perfect, with the slightest trace of an Athenian accent, nothing more. "Find us a baggage train come morning, then." She yawns and casts a longing glance up at the vivid moon and stars. Five more nights until she can go back to sleeping during the day. "I'm going back to bed."

"Did you spend all week learning Greek?" Rigor bursts out. Urd blinks at him. "...Yes."

"Oh." Rigor gapes a moment longer and looks away. "Well then. Not bad. For a slave."

Urd's expression never changes, but a hint of pride shimmers in his strange violet eyes. "Your language is not hard...for barbarians."

Rigor throws his head back and laughs uproariously. "So you do have a sense of humor! Thank Hermes! I was beginning to think this journey would be dull indeed."

"Hush, or you'll wake the whole street." Aia yawns, bemused at the Dacian prince's sudden change of mood. "Wake me when you find a company to travel with."

Urd nods. Rigor claps his shoulder, startling the thinner boy. "Come, slave. Now that you can talk we have much to discuss. What is your kingdom like? Are the armies vast? Are the women beautiful? Do they all have eyes like yours? Is it true your gods die every year?"

Urd looks taken aback. Aia heads back inside the inn, shaking her head. Humans are so strange.

* * *

Despite Rigor's warning, the journey to Thorikos goes by without trouble from bandits.

By the fourth day, Aia almost wishes the merchants had been right.

She tugs at the blue scarf covering her hair, a gesture long born of habit. Compared to Saitama, the tips of her ears are fine points, nothing more, and her canines are blunt enough to pass for a human's, but her white hair draws too much attention for her to comfortably pretend to be one.

"Why d'you wear that?"

She glances at the boy bobbing up and down on the horse next to her and doesn't answer. Maybe if she ignores him he'll leave her alone.

"Is your hair all gone?"

"No."

"Then why d'you wear that?"

"I like it," she says curtly. The boy tilts his head. He can't be more than seven. "Looks awful hot."

She pulls at the scarf self-consciously again. "It's not."

"Why not?"

"Because it's not."

"Why not?"

Was Yuu ever this annoying? She can't remember. "It isn't, alright? Why don't you go back inside the wagon with your mother?"

"Mommy is resting. She says her tummy hurts."

Aia raises an eyebrow. What little she's seen of their host's wife is young, pretty, and heavily pregnant. "Is there a healer in the train?"

The boy shrugs. "I'm Ajax," he announces. Aia raises the other eyebrow. "Like the hero?"

"Uh-huh!" Ajax gives her a gap-toothed grin. "He was the best hero!"

Aia turns back to her horse. It rolls a liquid eye at her and grudgingly quickens its pace a millimeter. She can't exactly blame it. The next rider is only a few feet ahead, and so is the one after that, a line that stretches into haze of dust as far as the eye can see. The wagons creaking and rumbling a few yards behind them block the rear of the road. There's nowhere to go except to keep trudging forward. She sighs, and instantly regrets it as dust floods her lungs. "Odysseus," she says.

Ajax wrinkles his freckled nose. "Ajax killed more men."

"Odysseus slaughtered an entire camp of Trojan allies," she counters.

"Ajax still killed more. He was the biggest and scariest and smartest and–"

"And bravest," Rigor says, riding up alongside them. He tugs Ajax's dark curls playfully and gives Aia a wink. "Isn't that right?"

"Yeah!" Ajax says happily. "Father says he was the bestest hero!"

"Smart man," Rigor says. "Speaking of your father, he wants you to join him at the head of the caravan."

Ajax's dark eyes grow round. "Really?"

"Yep. So you better head on up there." Rigor tousles his hair and gives his horse a light slap. The animal trots off, Ajax bobbing enthusiastically on its back. Aia watches him go, and slants a sideways look at Rigor. "You didn't have to lie. He wasn't annoying you."

"Who says it was a lie?" Rigor says cheerfully. "Maybe I really was talking to his father. Who, by the way, says that we should reach Thorikos by the end of tomorrow."

Aia twists in the saddle to stare at him and almost falls off as her mare skitters to the side. Rigor lunges to grab her reins. "Easy, easy," he murmurs, and waits for the horse to calm down before nudging Aia back into the saddle with his free hand. She settles back into the saddle, her ears red beneath the scarf. "Thank the gods," she says fervently. Rigor shrugs. "Technically I'm the one who caught you."

"Not you. Thorikos. Leaving this godforsaken caravan." She lowers her voice. "No more dust, no more long days in the saddle, a soft bed, a warm fire, and just wait until you see the villa." She sighs. "And the sea…"

"It will be good to see the ocean again," Rigor remarks. She waits for the inevitable follow-up of in my kingdom in Dacia… but it never comes. Rigor is looking over the distant dust cloud, his black gaze wistful. "My brother must have reached home by now," he says. "He was in Thrace, serving in the court of King Bastiza. Father sent him there when we were children." He chuckles. "I think Mother was afraid we would war over the throne, after Father expanded the kingdom. She always did like Cotiso more. Eldest son and all that. Ah, well." He leans forward and pats his mare's dark mane. "Cotiso will do a fine job of running the kingdom. And he already has a Thracian wife and heir, which will help our ties to the south. Father will be able to retire and enjoy his old age in peace, gods willing."

"Would you have fought your brother for the throne?" Aia asks. Rigor throws his head back and laughs. "And here I thought you would praise me for being an excellent son," he says, still chuckling. "I am one, aren't I? Sacrificing my own ambition for the sake of my parents' peace of mind? I should be given a speech praising me at Hestia's temple. They should tell of me as a fable to future Dacian royalty. What do you think?"

Aia glances at him. He grins back at her, his eyes dancing with mirth as he leans casually back in the saddle. His dark blonde hair has grown out during their travels; it falls into his eyes now, and he keeps having to brush it away in a quick, unconscious gesture. He leans back casually in the saddle, stocky and animated and carelessly handsome with his wide, straight features and firm jaw and dancing dark brown eyes. It's easy to see why Sigama chose him– but it's the mocking glint in his eyes, the reckless way he lounges in the saddle that makes her pause.

The next generation of gods, Sigama had said. A new race about to be birthed. His pale eyes had been lit with the same dreamy fervor she'd seen in priests and soldiers. A new era that will shake the world in its birth-pangs, and drown it in the blood of baptism.

She had long ago stopped believing in the gods. The only power she knew was all too tangible and terrifying, without mercy and oblivious to supplication. Homer's gods were too human. Hers was anything but. No one could be like Sigama, and she shuddered to think of anyone trying. No, even if his new race came to life, they would be minor gods, mere servants to their Master.

Urd would accept his role. He had been a slave. He understood that some powers, no matter how hated, must be obeyed. But Rigor...looking at him, she cannot imagine him obeying any master, not with the full heart, mind, body and soul that Sigama demands. Sigama must have known that. He must have known as surely as he knew Rigor would not refuse immortality, no matter the price.

"I think," she says quietly, "that a small Dacian kingdom would not have satisfied you, and you knew that."

His dark eyes glint. "Who knows?" he says airily, pushing his hair back. "Father always said the throne was more trouble than it was worth, anyhow. Maybe I would have become a roguish sea-lord, raiding the coasts of the Aegean Sea. I could have caught the eye of some wealthy and powerful Phoenicean king, and he would have given me his breathtakingly beautiful daughter, the equal of Cytherean Aphrodite herself, and I would have become lord of the Phoeniceans…"

"Yes," Aia says dryly. "And instead you chose to become one of us. How unfortunate."

Rigor grins at her. "Well," he says, "To become a god...even I can barely believe it." He clucks to his mare. "In the meantime, whilst I remain dismally mortal, there is a lovely priestess of Artemis travelling with us up ahead." He nudges his horse out of the caravan line and rides off.

Aia watches him go, troubled. The urge to ride after him and grasp his hand and see his past and future bloom before her eyes, to know why Sigama chose him, is tempting, but she pushes it away. It's not worth it. Besides, Sigama will probably ask her to later, anyway. She doesn't want to act without him.

And knowing the future, and even the past, and knowing that which comes cannot be stopped...

She shivers and pulls her cloak tighter around herself, despite the late summer heat.


	7. Second Blood

**A/N**

Contains major spoilers for chapter 78 of the manga.

**_Ashera_**

"Aia."

Aia looks up from her book. Sigama crosses the columned walkway to her niche and settles onto the cushioned stool opposite her with the rustle of cloth. "Reading the _Odyssey _again?" he asks, smiling. She nods.

"You must have read it five times, at least." Sigama smooths a wrinkle in his spotless white tunic. She half-shrugs, her eyes on the scroll in her lap.

"You must like it very much."

She nods.

"A good thing I asked that _aoidos _to stay with us, hmm? His stories have certainly weathered well. I remember how surprised he was when I asked a scribe to write them down. It has been a few years since, I suppose. I never did meet his son. What was he like?"

Aia lifts her head. "I don't remember," she murmurs. "Like his father, I suppose."

It's not a lie. She doesn't remember what he was like, or even his name. It's only the memory of his voice, rich and deep as honeyed wine, and his hands, painstakingly copying down with clumsy fingers letters from the wax tablet she held onto a sheet of papyrus, that stay untarnished in her mind, decades later.

_Please, mistress, teach me how to write. I want to immortalize my father's legacy. I want his words to be remembered._

Strange, how it's the little things that even immortality cannot erase. Words that last even when their speaker is dust and ashes. She smooths a thumb absently over the scroll. His father's words weren't the only ones to survive.

Sigama's piercing clear eyes are intent on her face. He smiles, as if reading every thought. "I've always preferred the _Iliad_," he remarks. "So much truer to their nature. Blood and dust and short-lived glory. Truly poetic, isn't it?"

She shrugs again. Sigama leans forward. "Aia," he says, snapping her to full attention. "It's been a few years, hasn't it? Since you last drank."

She swallows, her throat suddenly dry. "Yes."

"Silly girl. You should have mentioned it. I will never deny you, you know. Not my first. My Aia." He strokes her cheek with one pale fingertip and stands abruptly. "Come. You wouldn't want to stain those pretty books, after all." He waits for her to set her scroll aside and adds, almost carelessly, "And Aia...don't forget to tell me what you see."

* * *

The visions don't overwhelm her this time, but it still takes her a moment to stop trembling enough to speak. "A boy," she says. "Eight, maybe nine years old. Dark hair and eyes. He's chained."

"Where?" Sigama finishes washing his hands and turns back to her. The deep cut on his wrist is already paling to a scar. She licks her lips. "Here. In Thorikos. One of the slave traders."

"And?"

She swallows a mouthful of bile. She didn't throw up, this time, but her stomach still wants to. "A sword. Fire. Salt. Wings. A black sky." She takes a shuddering breath. "Blood. Black smoke–"

"Smoke?" Sigama says sharply. "Are you certain?"

She nods. He relaxes again. "Go on."

She shakes her head. "That's it. A black sword and the boy."

He stoops to lightly touch her cheek. "Well done, my oracle," he says, and straightens up. "I'll summon a slave for your bath. Have them burn your dress afterwards."

She stares at him, startled. "Urd, even Rigor could go–"

"No. This is something I will attend to. And I'll be taking Yu with me," he adds, glancing back at her. "Where is he?"

"In the atrium with Urd." She rises. "Sigama, this boy– he's not like the others, but I don't know if Yu–"

"You foresaw the future, yes?" Sigama says calmly. "He will not be like the others."

"But– Yu might–"

"If not…" Sigama pauses in the doorway of the windowless room and looks back. "Then I suppose he will die like the others. But you say he is different, so he will not." His pale eyes glitter. "Unless your visions were false."

She shakes her head wordlessly. Sigama smiles. "Then he will live," he says, and reaches for the doorknob. "Have the slaves prepare a chamber. I will be back tonight."

"Yes, Sigama," she murmurs. The door closes, shutting out the light, and she bites the inside of her cheek until it bleeds to keep from throwing up.

**A/N**

Thanks for reading! The story will pick up from here and have a lot of manga spoilers. You don't need to have read the manga to make sense of the plot (hopefully, anyway) and it might even be a cool non-canon backstory for the anime-only peoples.

Hope you're enjoying the story! Please comment and let me know what you think!

SpiritofaRose


	8. 430 BC

_430 B.C._

_Thorikos, Attica_

"What are you sulking about?" Rigor crouches down next to her, throwing the torchlight into shadow. Aia, sitting cross-legged on the cold flagstones with a scroll in her lap, ignores him.

He tugs one of her loose braids. "Urd says you've been here all day. What, have you been exiled underground like the rest of us poor slaves?" He sees her twitch and flings his head back and roars with laughter. "You have! Aw, have you offended Father? What did you do? I thought he always just locked you in your rooms. Were you trying to sneak out? Did you touch one of his experiments? Did you lose the brat? Come on, tell me." He tugs her braid again. "What did the favored child do to be sentenced down here in the secret dungeons?"

Aia rolls up the scroll with a snap. "Where's Urd?"

"Aw, are you thirsty? Hey, why do you never drink _my _blood? I taste good, I swear." He laughs uproariously as she gets to her feet and stalks away. "Come on, princess, I won't tell, I promise!"

She finds Urd in the library, bent over a desk. A faded sheet of papyrus is propped up against the stone wall in front of him beside a brimming inkhorn. He's meticulously copying the faded symbols onto a fresh sheet of parchment.

Aia leans against his back as he pauses to refresh the ink. "Sumerian?" she asks, glancing at the papyrus.

"Coptic. There are notes in Egyptian hieroglyphs, though, which make it easy to translate." He sets his reed pen and down and touches the worn papyrus with a gentle fingertip. "I've seen these glyphs before, on temple walls, but never these." He traces a series of slashed and crosses lines. "Master thinks it might be a Minoan dialect."

"You're translating it?" She folds her hands over his shoulder and rests her chin on them. He shakes his head, sweeping inky black hair across her nose. "Master asked me to copy the older manuscripts. Some of them are beginning to crumble."

She watches him refill his pen and make the first swirl of a complex glyph. "For his experiments?"

Urd finishes the glyph– an owl, its head twisted sideways– before answering. "I do not know. He simply told me which ones to copy."

"It will take years," she says, thinking of the sprawling shelves hidden deep below ground.

"Yes," Urd says simply, and starts another glyph. Aia resettles her small chin more comfortably onto his shoulder and watches him in silence. His bronzed, callused hands move steadily across the parchment, right to left, pausing only to refill his pen.

Her Egyptian is halting, her Coptic even more so, but she recognizes the curling loop of the ankh, the river-and-crown of Osiris, the tilted scale of Anubis between the rough scratch marks. Life, rebirth, death. She's seen the secret library, the strange, human-sized containers and the jars of powders and crushed metals. Sigama's experiments are getting bigger and bigger, but this one…

She sighs and buries her nose in the warm muscle of Urd's shoulder. He smells like fresh parchment and faint spices and the ever-present tang of blood. She shifts to lick her suddenly dry lips. Urd glances at her, but says nothing. He's gotten more talkative over the decades, but his expressionless stoicism hasn't changed. She doesn't mind– she finds his silence companionable, his short conversations pleasant after centuries of isolation.

Neither he nor Rigor are allowed to leave the underground chambers yet, but she comes down often to seek him out. He's usually studying some archaic language in the library, or bent over a desk, copying out formulas and ancient spells. He doesn't seem to mind her presence, and she rarely says much. She likes him– but Urd's loyalty lies first and foremost with Sigama, and she knows better than to test it.

Rigor, on the other hand...immortality has made the former Dacian prince more restless than ever. The human had made her pause; she trusts him even less now that he is one of her kind, second only to Sigama.

So she's been careful to keep a tentative peace with Rigor, to let him pull her braids and tease her. And occasionally, subtly, she lets slip a hint of Sigama's newest experiment, or mentions some war sweeping across the human world, careful to keep him dependent on her for information.

And, because Sigama has expressly forbidden him from touching her, she is carelessly affectionate to Urd, especially when Rigor is around. What began as a taunt grew into habit, and Urd doesn't seem to mind, and it's deeply satisfying to see Rigor's usually mocking mask slip at times.

And, of course, Urd has been the only one to satisfy her thirst for decades now, and Rigor knows it.

She settles her chin back onto Urd's shoulder. "Rigor seems restless," she remarks, watching him through the dark curtain of his hair.

"He is always restless."

"I thought Sigama might have told him off again. Yu caught a glimpse of him through the secret entrance last month."

"Master was right to do so," Urd says evenly. "It is too early for us to be seen. Time does not matter. We can wait. _Rigor _can wait."

"I do not think Rigor likes to wait," she murmurs. "He knows things are beginning to move. He does not like not knowing Sigama's plans."

"Master is wise." Urd reaches over to refill his pen. "It is not for us to question him."

"Do you think he is waiting for Rigor to rebel?"

A muscle twitches beneath her chin. Urd says nothing, but faint lines crease his eyes and mouth as he writes.

Aia sighs. "You are right. Sigama knows what is best," she says. The lie is bittersweet, but Urd's expression eases again. "Yes," he says. "We must trust he knows what is best."

_Do you?_ She wants to ask. _Or do you simply want to believe that?_ But all she says is, "Yes. And I will speak to Rigor. He will understand."

"Perhaps," Urd says quietly. She touches his arm reassuringly. "He will."

Urd sighs. "Do not tell him anything Master would not wish known."

"Of course. And besides," she adds, her lips quirking, "He is still sulking from Sigama's scolding. No use speaking to him now."

Urd smiles faintly. "True enough." He brushes a knuckle against her cheek. "You are paler than usual. Are you thirsty?"

"Only a little," she says. He's already setting down his pen and twisting around to face her. She reluctantly lifts her head. "I don't want to get blood on the parchment."

"Then be careful." He reaches up and brushes her hair back, cupping one warm palm around the base of her neck. She smiles crookedly. "I don't want to waste your hard work."

"I appreciate it. We can go to another room, if you wish."

She shakes her head. "I don't want much." She threads her fingers through his inky hair, pulling it back. He tilts his head obediently. She murmurs against the dark skin of his throat, "and besides...Rigor is just outside the door, listening."

The corners of his mouth twitch. "He can hear you."

"I'm perfectly aware." She bites down. Urd barely flinches, his face set. He sits stoically as she laps up the blood trickling down his throat, her grip tightening in his hair, but his hands are gentle as he holds her hair back.

She finishes quickly and steps back, licking her ruby lips. Her white hair tumbles back around her face as Urd lets go, one hand instinctively covering his neck. The cut is already closing. He inspects the blood on his fingertips dispassionately. "You may come in now, Rigor."

Rigor appears in the doorway, chortling. "Oh dear, you could hear me? My apologies. I just happened to be passing by and overheard the sound of–" he winks at Aia– "Action. Did I miss anything important?"

"Nothing whatsoever." Aia runs a hand through her messy braids and wipes her mouth on the back of her hand. "Unless you happen to know Coptic."

Rigor raises his eyebrows. "Oh, _coptic_. Is that what they call it now? And yes, princess, trust me, I'm _very _well versed in it."

She flushes, despite herself. "Excellent. You can help Urd translate this." She gestures at the faded papyrus. Rigor makes a face. "Oh. _That _Coptic. I'll pass. I have so much more exciting things to do, like watching the paint on the new columns dry– are those Egyptian hieroglyphs?"

Urd nods. Rigor moves closer for a better look. Aia peers over Urd's other shoulder, curious. "You know it?"

"I've read a scroll or two," Rigor says absently. "This is ancient Eygptian, not the modern stuff. Hey, Urd, you can read this?"

Urd nods again. Rigor leans forward, one hand braced on Urd's shoulder. "It has Coptic roots, sure, but this part here is Minoan. See that glyph? It means life, just like the ankh, but it's _over _the ankh, like it's describing it–"

Urd looks suddenly interested. "There is a book of Minoan spells on the shelf over there– yes, that one." He winces. "It's quite fragile."

Rigor pores over it, ignoring him. "Aha! Yes, see, here it's used as a descriptive pronoun–"

Unnoticed by either of them, Aia slips out. She returns a few moments later, carrying two more wicker stools. Rigor plops on to one without looking up from the tattered scroll. "This symbol, it's different from that one. Different dialect, do you think?"

Urd is unfurling a second scroll over the half-copied sheet of parchment. "Perhaps. See if it is repeated in the next incantation."

Aia sets her stool in the corner, leans back against the stone wall, and closes her eyes, feeling contentedly full. The thirst that's been itching at the back of her mind for weeks is gone now, and Urd's quiet voice is soothing. She settles her back more comfortably against the wall and listens sleepily to them as they haggle over ancient dialects and spells and symbols. Rigor sounds as excited as Yu with a new toy.

Yu...Sigama must be back by now. Yu must have been so excited to see the market-place and to meet another boy. Had they been back a full day yet? Was Yu still human?

The vision dances across the dark of her mind. She sees the boy clutching at the bar of a cage, the black sword, Yu's brilliant green eyes dripping black tears…

Was the boy still alive? Had the vision already happened?

She opens her eyes, restless again. The boy, the boy whose name she doesn't even know...is he even still alive? What is Sigama planning?

_Things are beginning to be in motion which will set the world ablaze, Aia. You will see. You have already seen._

The black sword. The boy. Yu. Like pieces of a puzzle slowly forming. A nightmare rising from nothingness.

She shivers.


	9. Ashera

**_A/N_** Contains major spoilers for recent manga chapters.

** _Ashera_**

"Oh, the torment bred in the race,

The grinding scream of death

And the stroke that hits the vein,

The hemorrhage none can staunch, the grief

The curse no man can bear."

—Aeschylus, The Libation Bearers

The boy standing in the middle of the great hall is so familiar that for a heartbeat she thinks her visions have finally come to life.

He's taller in real life, and younger; he can't be more than a few years older than Yu, eight, ten at most, even if his gaunt cheekbones and hallowed dark eyes make him look older. The servants must have bathed him and given him fresh robes; his pale skin is still pink from scrubbing, and his dark hair falls in thick damp strands over his hunched shoulders. The white tunic is too big for him. It hangs on his slender frame, his skinny arms and legs dangling like twigs. He looks so lost in the massive stone hall, clutching his baggy tunic self-consciously as Yu dances around him. "Ashera, Ashera, look at me. Look at me, Ashera. See my snake?"

Ashera stammers something. Yu plops down on the flagstones and pokes his leg with the wooden snake. "Aren't you gonna play with me?"

Ashera gingerly sits down beside him. "Sorry," he says quietly. His Greek is flawless, but his accent isn't Attic– Argos, or Sparta, maybe. His voice has a lilt she's never heard before. "I'm a little tired right now, Yu."

"But this is fun!" Yu pokes him again. "See?"

Ashera sighs. "How do you play?"

Yu wiggles his toy snake. "I go _RAWR_. And you go _Ahhhhh!"_ He gives Ashera a gap-toothed grin. "Fun!"

"Very fun," Ashera says unenthusiastically. "And that's it?"

"RAWR!"

Ashera ducks to avoid the wildly flailing snake. "Okay, okay, I understand. I'll play with you once I settle in a bit, alright?"

Yu lights up. "Really?"

Ashera smiles and sobers again quickly. "I promise. As long as Master likes me." He pauses, and adds, so softly she has to strain to hear him, "and if I survive..."

"That's easy!" Yu has an uncanny way of picking up things he's not supposed to hear. "Just don't die!" He wiggles his snake. "RAWR!"

Aia takes pity on Ashera. "Yu," she says, stepping out from behind the column, "how about you let the new boy rest a while? He's only just arrived."

Ashera starts. Yu scrambles to his feet. "Aia!"

She crouches to let him fling himself at her. "Hello, Yu. It's only been a few weeks." She dodges his flailing fists and rumples his hair affectionately. "What have you been up to?"

"I ate a bug," he says proudly. "And one of cook's pies, and some grass, and something in a cup that tasted funny that Sigama said was poy-son-ess." He sounds out the word carefully. "And Sigama took me outside!"

"So I heard." She stoops to meet his eyes and cups a finger under his chin. "Can you go ask Cook for one of her pies for me? And then you can tell me all about outside."

He pouts. "Dun wanna."

"Go on." She nudges him. "I'll tell you a story later, alright?"

"About monsters?"

"About demigods. You'll like them more."

"Oh." Yu considers for a moment. "Okay!"

Aia watches him dash off. Yu trips in the doorway, rolls a few feet, and comes back up beaming, his black hair matted with dust and sticking up wildly. He waves frantically at her. "I'm okay!"

She cups her hands around her mouth and shouts, "No bleeding!"

Yu nods enthusiastically and promptly tumbles headfirst into a bush. Aia sighs.

"Um…" Ashera clears his throat politely behind her. "Excuse me."

She turns. Black eyes like pools of ink meet hers– and then she is drowning in blood.

Thick, hot liquid slaps against her mouth, stinging her eyes. She flails desperately and inhales blood. The world turns red. Salt mixes with copper on her tongue, thick and suffocating. Ashera stands poised on the hilt of a black sword, watching her drown with those dark, lost eyes–

She staggers. The boy grabs her arm before she can fall, and the vision breaks at his touch, shattering like glass. He stumbles under her sudden weight. She grabs his wrist and steadies herself, breathing fast.

"Are you alright?" Ashera looks around frantically. "Should I call someone?"

She shakes her head breathlessly, avoiding his eyes. "Water–"

He dashes to the well outside. Aia sinks to the floor and buries her face in her hands. Sigama– she has to tell him– the end of the world–

She goes still. Yu, the black sword, those dark eyes, the scroll Urd was copying are all jumbled in her head like shards of broken pottery. Yu...the visions, the bad ones, only began after he brought Yu. Ashera, the sword, the blood and salt, they're all pieces of the puzzle. But Yu...he was the first piece. And Sigama had brought Yu, and told her, his soft voice hard as bronze, to tell him what she saw…

"Ma'am?" Ashera is standing over her, clutching the water-pail. "I brought water…"

Aia barely hears him. Her fingertips press into her skull. "All this time," she whispers.

"Ma'am?"

The fear in the boy's voice snaps her back to reality. She drops her hands. "Thank you." The water-pail trembles in her grip. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."

Small hands steady the pail for her. She takes a long gulp, then another, trying to wash the taste of salt and copper off her tongue. "Thank you."

Ashera lowers the half-empty pail. "Um...should I fetch the master?"

"No." She swallows hard. "No, I'm fine. I have– fits, sometimes. I'll be alright in a moment."

Ashera rises. "I'll fetch you some more water."

"Alright," she says distantly. All this time…

Ashera returns, balancing the brimming pail carefully. Aia gets gingerly to her feet and dusts off her dress. "Thank you," she murmurs, taking it, and sips slowly. Ashera watches her with the wide dark eyes of a child who has so many questions he doesn't know what to ask first. She sets the pail down and takes a deep breath. _There will be time,_ she thinks. _There is always time. _

"I'm alright now." She manages a wan smile. "I am sorry for frightening you. The other slaves are used to my– fits."

He avoids her eyes. "The master only bought me this morning."

"I see. You must be the new house boy."

"That's what the master said," Ashera says, still looking at the floor. Aia bites her lip, unsure what to say. She's still shaken from the vision, and she's never learned to speak with the slaves or handmaids; Sigama never let her, and Rigor and Urd are...different. She doesn't know how to calm this small human boy who is clutching his baggy tunic like a lifeline.

She reaches out and tentatively touches his wrist. The black sword glints in her mind's eye. "You must be tired," she says. "Would you like me to call the housekeeper to show you to your room?"

"Is that– I mean, would the master allow that?" he asks, sounding startled. She blinks. "Of course."

Ashera nods. "I would like that," he says quietly. "Thank you." He hesitates. "Um...mistress…"

"Aia," she says. "Lady Aia."

"Lady Aia. Thank you." He bows. "My name is Ashera. Ashera Tepes."

She manages a smile. "Gods' bless, Ashera Tepes," she says, and leaves him there in the empty great hall, standing small and lost between the carved marble columns.

* * *

The scream shatters the dusk.

Aia bolts upright in bed, breathing hard. There's the muffled beat of footsteps outside her door, then the slow creak of the heavy wooden doors to Sigama's personal chambers swinging shut. The footsteps return to the other end of the hall.

She stays very still, straining to hear. Her heart thuds against her ribs. She's heard that scream before.

_Yu_.

Her bare feet slap the cold stone floor. The torches in the hallway are dark. She fumbles for the heavy latch and strains to lift it.

The thick doors move open an inch. Sigama's quiet musical voice floats through the crack. "Now, Yu, calm yourself."

The inhuman growl makes her hair stand on end. Yu's voice cracks and deepens to a roar. "_Filthy humans– kill them all– KILL THEM ALL–" _

"Oh dear." Sigama sounds mildly disappointed. "It seems your timing isn't the best, Ashera. Back out the door. Slowly, now.

Ashera's voice is cracked with fear. "What–"

"_RAHHHGGRHHHHH!" _

Aia yanks on the latch. It finally gives way. She stumbles back as the doors swing outward. A pale shape comes flying out and collides with her.

They both go sprawling. She catches a glimpse of Ashera's terrified face in the torchlight streaming through the doors as he rolls off her.

Then the doors explode off their hinges.

White wings fill the narrow hallway. Yu hovers over them, his eyes liquid black, his lips drawn back in a garbled scream, fangs bared. "_Kill the filthy humans, kill them all, wipe them from the earth, kill, kill–" _

Blood sprays her face. Ashera's scream cuts short.

She stares, frozen, as Yu thrashes his wings and lunges into the air, dragging Ashera's limp body in his wake. Aia cowers as the world transforms into a blur of blood-stained feathers.

When she opens her eyes again, the world has gone white and still. She pushes herself up slowly onto her hands and knees and cranes her head back.

Sigama looks down at her. His colorless gaze travels across her blood-speckled face, to the rubble of the doors and the partially destroyed ceiling, and back to her. His expression is very, _very _calm.

She closes her eyes. Silk robes crumple around her in the soft _ffffffwip _of wings, and then Sigama is gone.

* * *

Aia splashes water on her face and fumbles for the cloth. Droplets spatter the flagstones as she moves to squint at her reflection in the bronze mirror. Her pale cheeks are pink from scrubbing, but the blood is finally gone. A damp white strand clings to her forehead and she brushes it away impatiently. The reek of copper is still heavy on her tongue.

The silent maid helps her change out of her stained tunic and into a silk _chiton _with fluttering elbow-length sleeves. The maid drapes a light blue mantle around her shoulders and pulls her damp hair back into a loose series of twists, and curtsies. "Anything else, mistress?"

Aia shakes her head. "I'm going to the library. You're dismissed."

The maid curtsies again and retreats behind the curtain. Aia glances at her reflection again one last time and pulls her mantle tighter around her thin shoulders.

The hallway is almost free of rubble. Slaves move silently to and fro, loading fallen stones and shards of plaster into wicker baskets and carrying them away. A burly man with an axe is splitting the fallen doors into firewood. Two more men are stirring jars of mortar and piling stones while a maidservant sweeps the floor clean. Aia glances at the dark sky. It's only been an hour since Sigama came back, carrying Ashera's limp body in one arm and Yu's head tucked under the other.

_Another experiment failed, _he said calmly, but there was a glint in his eyes she hadn't seen in a long time.

He tossed Yu's headless corpse at her feet. _Drink. Then clean yourself up. Have Colonus dispose of the body. Come to the laboratory when you are done. I want you there when he wakes up._

The library is empty, as usual. She makes her way to the farthest niche and stands on tiptoe to reach the hidden lever. One of the decorative columns slides smoothly to the side. She slips inside.

Rigor is waiting for her at the bottom of the steps. "You look pretty good for surviving one of Yu's temper tantrums," he says, grinning. Aia lifts her chin. "I see you've heard."

"Father summoned us an hour ago." He catches one of her stray curls and tugs it as she descends. "Even Urd's excited. He's pacing like a caged cat."

Aia falls into step beside him, trotting to keep up with his easy long strides. "And you?"

"It _is _exciting, isn't it? To have a brother after so many centuries?" Rigor quickens his stride. His voice turns sing-song. "_We the young gods born of blood…" _He stops, realizing she's trailing behind, and waits for her to catch up. "Isn't that what your poet says? '_Listen, you blissful powers underground. Answer the call. Bless the children of your blood, the old blood, the young gods who rise now to power.'_"

"Aeschylus," Aia murmurs automatically, and glances at him sharply. "I thought you didn't like the classics."

"Whatever gave you that idea?" Rigor nudges her teasingly. "I love the classics. All those dusty old poets preaching of morality and the _polis_ and dying young in a flame of glory. Who doesn't like a flame of glory?" He pauses. They've reached the entrance to the laboratory.

"_We the children of your blood,_" Rigor quotes, and offers her his arm with a mocking grin. "Shall we go see whether our fellow deity has survived his ascendence?"

She rests a small pale palm on his tanned forearm. "_We the children of your blood," _she murmurs, and follows him inside.

Urd is waiting inside. His dark red gaze is fixed on the center of the room. The chamber is empty aside from a throne carved from a single block of stone. A boy sits there, his dark head slumped forward, his tunic torn and black with blood.

Urd moves slightly as Aia and Rigor silently come up to stand beside him. They wait in silence, as the minutes, then hours tick by, and the gaping hole in the boy's chest slowly heals.

The boy moans. The three vampires exchange looks; Urd, impossibly still and unreadable, Rigor, his face alight with anticipation.

The black sword glints in her mind's eye. Aia takes a deep breath.

_Too late now…_

The taste of copper stays heavy on her tongue no matter how much she swallows.

Ashera moans again. She reaches up and curls her fingers in Urd's sleeve, then Rigor's, as the red tide begins to seep in at the edges of her vision.

Rigor is the first to take her hand, his callused fingers deftly swallowing up hers. Urd follows a second later, hesitantly folding his hand over hers. She grips both of their hands tightly and looks back at Ashera.

He opens his eyes. She sees him struggle to focus, one hand clutching instinctively at his chest. His gaze locks on her. His eyes aren't black anymore. They're a rich, deep red, darker even than Rigor's.

"Lady Aia?" he whispers.

Rigor's face splits into a grin. "Good, you're finally awake!" He twists to beam at them. "And now we are four. Things will be so much more fun now, won't they, Urd?"

"You know I dislike unnecessary change, Rigor," Urd says tersely, his grip tight on Aia's hand. Rigor laughs. "Ah yes, I forget."

Ashera is still clutching his chest. "I can hear things from far away," he whispers, wide-eyed. "I can smell the blood outside."

Urd steps forward. "Do not fear," he says. "As of this moment, you have shed your humanity. You have been allowed to become one of us. An immortal."

"A god," Rigor adds, still grinning.

Ashera looks around, bewilder. "I do not–" he clutches suddenly at his throat. "Thirsty…" He gasps. "I need– need blood–"

"Yes, yes. Get used to it. It won't ever truly go away." Rigor claps Urd on the shoulder. "Guess we'll have to teach him, hmm, Urd?"

"I suppose so." Urd turns. "Come. We will show you–"

Ashera brushes past him. "Sigama," he gasps. "Where is Sigama?"

"You cannot," Urd starts, but Ashera is already vanishing deeper into the laboratory. Rigor laughs. "He's so energetic. Remember when we were like that?"

"You were never like that," Aia says dryly. Urd frowns. "Should we go after him?"

Aia shakes her head. "No. Let Sigama explain." She yawns, suddenly tired. The red haze is fading. The taste of blood is finally gone. Whatever threat her visions were warning her about, it's gone, at least for now. Suddenly she's just sleepy, and thirsty. _Very _thirsty. She looks up at Urd.

"Hey, I want some too," Rigor protests, noticing the look. Urd's eyes narrow. "Father said–"

"Yes, yes. But what's so special about you? Father turned _me _first."

Aia laughs. "Go ask Father, then."

Rigor makes a face. Urd cracks a smile. "There is enough for all of us. Let's go."

Rigor sighs. "You never know. Things are changing. We are four now, after all."

"We are four," Urd agrees. Aia reaches up and squeezes his hand.

"We are four," she says, and for what feels like the first time in centuries, she smiles.

**A/N**

Whew that was long! Hope you guys enjoyed! As always, leave a comment and tell me what you think (:


	10. We the Children

_We the Children_

She struggles to remember now.

There are moments. Emotions. Voices. People. Memories she clings to like a lifeline, remnants of when she still remembered what it felt like to be human.

"How old was I?" she asks Sigama. They're in the garden, watching the workers labor over the foundations of the new villa in the distance. Sigama had chosen the spot carefully; Thorikos was only a tiny village, but it was only a day's travel from the closest city, and already trade routes had been marked out through its scattered fishing shacks and farms.

_It's the closest village to the sea, and the land is perfect for farming, _Sigama had explained. She'd perched on his lap and watched him trace a line on the map. _The local king will build a dock here, and then trade will start coming in. Thorikos will become important enough to influence the landlocked cities, yet it's far enough from all of them not to be involved in the petty political squabbles. _

_How do you know the king will build a dock? _she asked, and Sigama gave her an approving smile. _That, my Aia, will take a little persuasion from my end. _He nudged her focus back to the map. _Listen well, Aia. Humans are small, petty creatures, concerned only with what they think will serve them best. A simple word, a suggestion, some money, the right pawn in the right place will make them all clay in your hands, with enough time...and we shall always have enough time. _

Sigama opens his eyes. He's resting on a low sofa beneath the shade of an olive tree, one pale arm flung lazily over his forehead to shield his eyes from the seeping sunlight. "How old were you when what?"

"When I became like you." She scratches a line in the dirt with a twig. "I've grown again. Aisha says so. She says my dresses are too short now."

"Have you?" Sigama rolls on his side to look at her. "Hmm, I suppose you have. Do you feel older?"

"Not really." She adds another line to her growing stick man. "I don't think I look any different."

"Maybe not, then." Sigama sits up and beckons. "Come here."

She gets up obediently and comes over. Sigama slips a hand under her chin and tilts her head up. She makes a face as the sun hits her eyes.

"Hmm. You do look a little older. Eight or nine years old, perhaps." He smooths a hand over her rumpled hair, touches a cool fingertip to the corner of her left eye. "Interesting."

"What's interesting?" She flinches and closes her eyes as he passes his thumb over them. The coolness of his skin eases the sunlight's heat that's making her eyes sting.

"I don't remember how old you were, exactly, when I found you." He tweaks her nose and releases her. "But you were much cuter. Your face was so tiny, all big brown eyes and freckles."

She touches her pale, unmarked cheek self-consciously. "So I was still a baby?"

"Hmm, not quite." He yawns and lies back down. "Four or five, maybe."

"And my eyes were brown?"

His pale lashes flicker. "Why are you suddenly so curious?"

"Just curious," she murmurs, and bites back the other questions brimming on the tip of her tongue. _What city was I from? How did you find me? What was my name? Did I have parents, or was I abandoned? _

_Why me?_

"Humans are petty, stupid creatures." Sigama's eyes are translucent slits beneath their heavy lashes. "Remember that."

The tip of her twig snaps, cutting deep into the stick man's head. She smooths it out quickly with her sandal. "I thought we came from humans."

"What are the titans, Aia?"

She blinks. "The ancient ones. The children of the earth."

"And what were they like?"

"Monsters," she murmurs.

"And the new gods? What did they do to the titans?"

"Zeus chained them in Tartarus." She fiddles with her broken twig. "Aisha says there was a terrible battle, and Zeus cut up his father Kronos with his own scythe."

"That's right. And was that good?"

"Of course. The ancient ones hated humans. They made us – they made _them_ into slaves."

"And what are humans like, Aia?"

Suddenly she understands. "Terrible," she says softly. "They kill and enslave each other."

"And who are we, Aia?" Sigama's pale gaze is piercing. She knows what he wants to hear. "The young gods," she says quietly.

"That's right. Remember that, Aia. Remember what you are, and what you must do."

And she does. She tries. Mostly, she listens. A child, she's learned, can listen to all kinds of things without anyone realizing it.

So she listens to Sigama's council with the local king, perched on Sigama's lap and hugging her toy cat and struggling to understand names and places she's never heard of.

The council doesn't go well. "A weak king," Sigama says dismissively, and that's that. She spends the next few months in the library in the half-finished villa, poring over maps and dusty records while Sigama travels.

When he returns, he takes her to a different king. This time, she understands why everyone keeps talking of the Hittites, and the house of Argos that keeps them at bay.

Then she meets Yu, and things change again.

The visions are getting worse. She spends hours, days sometimes in her bed with the curtains drawn, clutching her throbbing head and drifting from the future to the past. The nightmares always follow, blazing the dark with columns of salt and fire and blood.

Sigama starts letting her travel, always with a company of guards and at least one servant who understands her 'fits'. Suddenly the people and places from the dusty and records are the somebody's grandfather or war-hero uncle, the tiny mark on the map a bustling city.

Some things don't change. People still talk of the house of Argos and the growing Hittite threat. She hears of a famous port city across the sea, and whispers of great kings and princes so beautiful the gods themselves steal them away for their own.

The docks at Thorikos are finally finished. Sigama's trade ships are the first to enter. And from the small fishing village a city blooms, wooden shacks unfurling into grand stone villas, gardens planted and wells dug, farms sprawling back to make room for the crowds that flock to the bustling marketplace.

She loves the marketplace. It's unchanging, ethereal, always filled with spices and colors from strange lands, with animals with curling horns and tails and intelligent bright eyes and lithe, spotted fur she's never seen before, and different tongues barking and jabbering and screeching and singing languages like a wailing chorus.

She hears the murmurs, of course, that trail behind her. Rumors are important. Sigama taught her that. Rumors tell you what people want to think.

_Who is that? The child, the one with the headscarf. _

_She's the daughter of some great prince– the one who lives up in that huge villa on the mountain. See the guards following her?_

_Really? But she's such a pale, sickly-looking little thing. And those eyes…_

_I've heard rumors the house is cursed. _

_Poor thing...it's a wonder her father lets her come, small as she is. _

_Shh, she's looking this way!_

The merchants don't seem to mind her, though. She stays by one or two stalls at a time, listening, occasionally asking questions about some new dye or cloth. When the afternoon heat hits and the crowds retreat back home, she lingers. The merchants are usually happy to chat when she shares her lunch, or has the guards bring them fresh water from the well. She learns faces and names, starts to understand snippets of conversation.

Sigama never asks about her market trips, so she's surprised when he casually asks her a question in Phoenician and she answers without thinking in Attic. Sigama only smiles.

The next month, she finds a book of Phoenician poetry on her bed.

* * *

People are starting to whisper.

_My father says the lord of that villa is god-blessed. He's been ruling since my father's father's time._

_Did you see the child? I remember seeing her in the agora. She's still so small and sickly. _

_He's hasn't married her off yet…_

_Married her off? She's only a child. She can't be more than ten._

_No, my mother met her when they were both children. She must be at least thirty..._

_Oh, that villa? It's been here since Thorikos was founded. I don't know the lord's name, but he's from an old house. My grandfather remembers when…_

_Have you ever actually seen him?_

_No, but his daughter comes to the market-place. Strange little girl, with those queer eyes…_

_They say there's a curse on the house…_

* * *

"Aia."

She looks up from her book. The maidservant weaving in the corner rises and retreats silently behind the curtain.

Sigama leans in the doorway. He still wears pure white, even though all the noble houses have adopted the custom of wearing purple to signify their station. "Pack your things. We're leaving."

"Where?" She sets the book down on the woven blanket and slides to her feet. "Athens? Thebes? I heard the temple gardens at Parnassus are beautiful this time of year."

"Where did you hear that?" Sigama sounds faintly amused. "The traders?"

"A priest of Apollo. I met him at the games." She tucks a stray white strand behind her ear and glances back up at him. He's still smiling, but it's unusual for Sigama to take her with her on his travels. "So where are we going?"

"Across the sea," he says vaguely, moving over to her dresser. He stoops to open the chest beside and lifts out a white tunic with golden trim. "You'll want all your clothes. You won't have new ones for a while."

She frowns. "But the Hittites have blocked the trade routes," she says, taking the tunic obediently and folding it over one arm. It trails on the flagstones behind her as she follows him back to the doorway. "Even the market is empty. All the docks are closed."

Sigama glances at the curtain across the room, dividing the maid's chamber from hers, and switches to Iberian. "There's a city on the edge of the Hittite empire, just across the Aegean," he says. "Ilion. We'll be living there for the next few years."

"And Yu?"

"I put him to sleep," Sigama says. "It will only be a few decades."

"Why?"

He pauses in the doorway, one hand on the knob. "Lady Rumor can be dangerous," he says, and adds, "Pack your things. We leave in an hour."

* * *

**A/N**

These chapters keep getting longer 0.o I ended up dividing this chapter into two because it was getting ridiculously long. The good news is, that means the next chapter will be up (hopefully) by the end of the week. Don't worry, Urd and Rigor will be back soon. And then we'll see the darker side of vampirism...  
As always, please comment! It really means a lot to me when you take the time to let me know if you like it!


	11. Born of Blood

**Born of Blood**

Aia likes Ilion. Even in Thebes she's never seen walls so high, or so many people speaking so many languages. The market is even bigger than the one in Thorikos, but she only catches a glimpse of it as they pass through to the citadel. After that, she barely remembers the bustle of people and dance of languages weaving through the air like music. Life has come alive. For the first time, her days are not the vague awareness of time. Time matters. She can feel it streaming through her fingers like grains of sand, conscious of each hour, each moment brimming with life and gone like a dying spark.

They stay as guests of King Muwatalli for a few weeks. Sigama regales the court with stories of his travels and lavishes the king with gifts until the nobles are crowding him with invitations. The king moves them from the guest chambers to a private apartment in the lower levels of the citadel, and by the end of the first month, the city is bustling with news of the wealthy Greek prince from Thorikos.

God-marked, people whisper, god-blessed, and the rumor sweeps through the noble families, until even the priests are coming with gifts and blessings for the strange, white-haired and pale-eyed lord and his daughter. Sigama welcomes all of them. Their porter has orders to open the door no matter the hour, and the cook keeps a pot of spiced wine warm for unexpected visitors.

She's never seen Sigama like this. For as long as she can remember, he's preferred to stay isolated, locked underground, tending to the construction of his secret laboratory or tinkering with some new magic or alchemy. Even in his travels, trying to find some ancient text or refresh his knowledge of peoples and places, he was always aloof from the rest of the world. Time washed over him and left him unchanged, and she, standing in his wake, watched the waves roll past and wondered what it would be like to drown in them.

Here, though, shielded from the rest of the world inside Ilion's towering walls, caught in the bustling hub of the most influential port city in the vast Hittite empire, she discovers that Sigama can swim, and obviously expects her to do the same.

And for the first time, god-marked is spoken aloud, reverently, not whispered.

Observe, Sigama tells her, and she sits on her carved seat in the balcony, half-hidden from the curious eyes of the guests by sheer curtains, and listens to the conversations whisked towards her by the warm sea breeze.

Sigama sweeps from guest to guest, dressed in flowing purple robes like a Hittite prince, his white hair cut to his shoulders and braided back in the latest style. She watches him chatting and laughing with the young nobles, who come for the spiced wine and spill court rumors as their cups are refilled. The king's advisors, retired generals and the old men from the ancient families, come to talk seriously. They ask about the House of Argos, and how far news of the Hittite invasion has spread, and how the scattered Greek isles will react. In turn, Sigama asks them about the war, before the tentative treaty left a half-Hittite king on the throne of Ilion.

Aia joins them during those evening discussions. She hovers shyly behind Sigama as he introduces "my beloved only child– her dear mother, my faithful wife, died so young and unexpectedly, gods' bless her soul–" and tells of young love and heartbreak so sorrowfully that even Aia half-believes him. It's like magic: a few words, a gesture, and fierce old generals are weeping silently into their beards.

She wants it.

"Teach me how to lie like that," she says, after the elders leave and the slaves have vanished for the night.

"Everyone knows how to lie." Sigama shrugs off his shimmering blue overcoat and tosses it onto the bed. "Fools most of all."

"Not like you."

"Do I lie?" His pale eyes glitter beneath their heavy lashes. "What was the lie?"

"You told them I was your daughter."

"You are my daughter." He tugs on his sash. The white folds of fabric slither to the ground and puddle at his feet. He steps delicately over them, his wings unfolding from bare skin and nothingness. Aia steps back as white feathers envelop the room. "You lied about my mother," she says quietly.

Sigama turns his back to her. "Did I?" he asks, lowering himself into the nearby tub. His wings twitch and flex restlessly above him as he sinks down with a sigh.

She goes over and undoes his braids, her small fingers threading deftly through the knots as his snow-white hair cascades over the side of the tub. He catches her wrist as she steps back. "Answer me, Aia."

She goes still. Explanations flicker through her mind and wilt one by one. What can she say? She doesn't remember her mother. She can't even remember a time before she was Turned. She only remembers pain, and fire raging through her veins, and white wings, and the thirst.

Sigama's grip on her wrist tightens. Warm water runs down his fingers and soaks her sleeve. "How do you know it was a lie?"

"A feeling," she says helplessly. "That's all."

He releases her. "No," he says, turning back around. "A preconceived belief. That is the difference. Any fool can lie, because he only tells what he wants to hear. To say what others want to hear, their hopes, dreams, subconscious beliefs...that is not a lie." He holds out a hand, palm-up. Aia rummages through the shelf of lotions, spices, and scented oils and retrieves the soap. Sigama extends a long ivory leg over the rim of the tub. "Dwell on that a while," he says, and starts to scrub.

It's a clear dismissal. She bows, picks the rumpled robes off the floor and lays them neatly on the bed, and hesitates in the doorway. "Father?"

"Hmm?" A wing stretches to its full seven-foot length, flares wide, and droops again.

"How can you tell all that about a stranger?"

She can't see his face from the doorway, but his wings go suddenly still. For a moment there's only the soft lap of water sloshing against the sides of the tub.

"Humans are simple creatures. They all want the same things, in the end." Sigama looks back at her. "Family. Love. Power. The belief in law, in something bigger than themselves. The hatred of suffering, the fear of death and the unknown. In the end, those are what matter to mortals. Once you understand that, you can understand the stranger on your doorstep better than he understands himself. After that, it's only a matter of persuasion."

"Will you teach me how to persuade them?"

Sigama waves a hand. "Learn how to understand them first. When I see that you can do that, I'll teach you the rest." He yawns and flaps a hand at her. "Now shoo. I've had enough of talking for the next century."

Aia nods and leaves, closing the double doors gently behind her.

Her own room is only a few steps down the hall. The maids have left the window open to let in the cool night air; she can hear the buzz of cicadas far in the distance, past the walls. Jebel, one of the Phoenician girls Sigama bought at the marketplace when they arrived, is weaving quietly in the corner. She stands as Aia enters, reaching for the lone candle at her side. Aia waves her away as she comes over to help her undress. "Is the bath still warm?" she asks in Phoenician, reaching up to untangle the pins from her veil.

"Yes, mistress. We kept jars of water on the fire."

"Good. You can go to bed after you pour them." Aia's fingers fumble with her sash. Jebel comes over and deftly undoes the complicated knot. "Will you be needing anything else, mistress?"

"Just leave the light." Aia yawns and shrugs off her tunic. Cool sea air washes over her cold skin, leaving goosebumps trailing in its wake. She rubs her arms and looks around absently for a cloth. There's already one folded neatly on a low stool beside the tub, next to a bar of scented soap and oils for her skin and hair. The curtain dividing the bath from the rest of the chamber slips back into place as Jebel ducks out, carrying the discarded tunic. "Night, mistress."

"Good night." Aia says absently, covering another yawn. She's still not used to this cycle of sleeping through the early hours of the morning and rising at noon, but even the heavy drapes can't block out the sound of the city, and she needs some sleep. Unlike Sigama, who discarded such petty mortal needs as sleep, food, and drink long ago.

Usually she would tumble straight from the bath to bed, but tonight she wants to think.

She's seen Sigama do incredible things before. He's quietly built cities and destroyed dynasties, and decades later she would hear the legend of how the gods favored some small town, or how a curse toppled a throne from within. Humans liked to make up stories. Stories had power. Stories, rumors, had driven Sigama from his comfortable laboratory to a foreign city with no privacy, no isolation, none of the things he preferred. She hadn't thought anything could make Sigama do anything he didn't want to do. He's more unshakeable than the mountains, stronger than the gods, and far scarier. She knows she's barely seen a glimpse of his power. But she understands how he does it. She's seen him pore over the maps and talk to the local priests and meet with kings. She's watched him shape history with money and power and quiet suggestions.

What he did tonight she doesn't understand at all. She'd seen how some of the elders looked at him. The old general– the one with more scowl lines than she'd ever seen on a human, and a name with too many syllables to pronounce– had come through the door as if being forced to pass through a tainted home. The man with him, the youngest of all of them, was the court bard. She'd heard them whispering together about how Sigama was encouraging drunkenness and illicit behavior in the young men, how he was a foreign spy, sent from the Greeks, how the king was a fool to take him in.

A few stories, an emptied wineskin, and the old general had tears trickling down his weathered cheeks. The bard had taken her hand so tenderly she might have been made of glass, and asked her name with gentle dark eyes.

How? How had words, only words, not gifts or a show of power or a dropped name or place, changed their hearts? She doesn't understand.

Water sloshes as she sinks deeper, lapping at her pale chest, her thin shoulders, her chin. She closes her eyes and exhales slowly through her nose. Her lungs cramp, crumpled from unuse. She forgot to breathe again.

Family. Love. Power. Law. Hatred of suffering. Fear of death. Fear of the unknown.

Family. She understands that one. It's a deep-rooted ache in her bones, the only thing she's carried with her into this new life.

Love. A pretty name for sheer physical desire. She moves on.

Law. She understands that one, too. Sigama is her law. He determines her fate, orders her movements, instructs her thoughts. He gives order to a world that, to humans, must seem so overwhelmingly chaotic.

Fear of the unknown...that is the simplest one. Everyone is afraid of something. Death and suffering only pave the way to the true terror.

"Oh," she says suddenly aloud, and chokes on a mouthful of water and slips under.

By the time she's ejected enough water from her aching lungs to drown a human, the candle has sunk to its base and she's thoroughly soaked and tired. She scrapes herself down, rakes a comb through her knotted wet hair, and manages to dry off before the candle gives a final sputter and dies.

Even with her heightened senses, it takes a while to find a clean tunic and fit her arms and head through all the right holes. She doesn't bother to wipe up the puddle on the stone floor behind the curtain. The maids can clean it in the morning...no, she doesn't have blood to spare to feed all the mosquitos that will come. She sighs and turns around and almost brings the partition down tripping on the curtain.

By the time she finally tumbles into bed, she's wide awake again, and thinking.

It's not magic. Even magic has its own proper rules and laws. Sigama makes it all look like magic, but there must be rules and laws to how he does it, just like everything else. Even if she can never be like him, she can learn. She can learn what people think and say and act, the stories they tell and the ones they believe, and make them believe hers.

_I'll learn. I always do. And I'll find a way._

_And then...and then, maybe, Sigama will believe my stories, too._


	12. We the Fallen

_We the Fallen_

"Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget

Falls drop by drop upon the heart

Until, in our own despair, against our will,

Comes wisdom."

—Aeschylus, _Agamemnon_

She remembers when she first understood she was different.

Yuu is asleep in the shade of the olive tree beside her, her dark head nestled in her lap. His small fingers knead her leg restlessly, his skin almost as pale as her own, blending together. She threads her fingers through his wild black hair and marvels at its softness, at the tiny part of his pink lips, the long black crescent of lashes against his milky skin.

The world has been grey for so long that the sharp pang in her chest makes her clutch a fist over her heart. It pulses dully against her clenched fingers; impossibly faint, painstakingly slowly, but alive. Her lungs cramp from her sudden sharp breath.

She presses her palm to Yuu's small chest and feels the steady rhythm pounding there in awe. His heartbeat is so much stronger than hers.

She presses her other hand to her own chest again and closes her eyes. Her heart pangs again, a solitary painful beat, and goes still.

* * *

The room is dark, imperceptible even to her eyes. She stares blindly into the darkness, her hands limp at her sides, trying to ignore the pain.

Wetness flicks her throat. Hair soft as feathers, luminescently pale even in the dark, covers her naked body like a shroud, whispering over her skin. She shivers. Sigama lifts his head. The shroud vanishes. His soft, musical voice rasps. "Mantaia."

She tilts her face up obediently, lips parting. He tastes of her, her blood strangely flavorless on his lips, and of his own blood, of warmth and color and the faint metallic tang of the slave boy whose body is sprawled on the flagstones by her bare feet. Her throat works, swallowing greedily. She reaches out instinctively as Sigama starts to pull away.

The dark sweeps her away before she touch him.

Salt. Fire. Blood.

She walks through the wasteland, past the bodies. Yuu is a crouched figure on the barren earth, his wings crumpled. Jagged white pillars crumble around him.

He looks up at the crunch of her footsteps. His face twists, the baby fat melting away, his ears sharpening to points, fangs curving over his lower lip. He staggers to his feet, towering over her now, no longer a child, but his green eyes are huge and pleading in his deathly pale face and she runs to him anyway, reaching out to fling her arms around him as his eyes turn black and inky tears spill down his cheeks.

Her heart throbs. She looks down at the black sword buried in her chest and watches her flesh dissolve into ash.

The high, harsh song of a trumpet sounds, and another. She watches the sky splinter open and a thousand angels descend on white stallions, inky tears running down their perfect smiling faces.

She opens her eyes. Darkness settles back over her like a comforting blanket. She listens to the splash of Sigama washing his hands and waits for him to leave so that she can light a lamp and wash the blood from her skin.

* * *

**A/N**

I resurrected from my holiday food coma to bring you Armageddon -(: More flashbacks to come next chapter.

Hope y'all had a lovely winter break! If you're in the mood for a holiday gift, leave a review down below (: A belated thank you to **Tsukiyomi-Hio** for reviewing!

-SpiritofaRose


	13. Born of Pain

_Born of Pain_

She remembers the loneliness.

The door had been open, the inside dark. She wasn't supposed to go inside. Sigama's underground laboratories were secret even to her.

She peered through the crack anyway. The torchlight from the corridor caught on the sheen of glass.

Massive glass jars, bound in stone frames between the ceiling and floor. Rows and rows of them. A limp figure slept suspended in liquid in each one, black hair wafting gently around their small pale face.

The inaudible hum of a hundred hearts beating in unison thrums through her feet and into her chest. Her heart pangs and goes still.

_I am not alive. _

* * *

Sigama laughs. "Everything is alive," he says when she asks, sweeping an arm at the green-flecked grey hills, the crescent of sea curving through them to the horizon. "The blades of grass, the waves beating the stones to dust, the sky bringing rain."

His smile is gently mocking, his pale eyes void of reflection. He does not breathe, and she knows that if there is a heart inside his chest, it is marble, as pale and perfect and unchanging as his eyes.

"Humans are very alive," she says quietly.

"So are ants," Sigama says. "Everything that moves is alive. And it all moves in one great cycle to kill other things and suck the life from them. Life is merely existence, Aia. Even the gods grow tired of it. Don't idolize it."

She nods. Her heart beats and grows still.

_I am merely alive. _

* * *

Yuu is falling asleep again. She lets his head droop onto her shoulder mid-yawn, his fingers curling in her robes. "What's that?" he mumbles.

She watches the bee hum its way to a stray flower. "A bee."

"What's that?"

"A flower," she says patiently.

"What's that?" The last word's slurred. He can barely keep his eyes open. She wraps an arm around his small shoulders. He's so much smaller than last time. "An olive tree."

"What's…"

She strokes his hair. He still smells faintly of cold stone and strange chemicals. She rests her chin lightly on the top of his head and holds him, his small scrawny body curling into hers. He's so thin. So tiny compared to last time. It's been a week and he's still asking questions every waking moment. The world never seems to daunt him.

How many times has it been now? How many times has she even noticed?

He had almost been as tall as her. She could see the baby fat melting away, see what he would look like as an adult, when he finally surpassed her. He'd been doing so well. Learning so much.

Yuu sighs in his sleep and nestles closer. She flinches.

It was a nightmare. He was tossing restlessly, his head in her lap, his fingers digging into her skin. She had reached out to calm him.

Salt. Fire. Blood. The sound of trumpets.

He had had nightmares before. Maybe it was her own vision tumbling upon his. Maybe it was her touch that sparked it. Maybe it was her fault.

She was jolted back by his scream. Confused, because it was her blood dripping down his clawed fingers, her pain that shone in his jet-black eyes that welled and streamed down his face in inky tears.

And then Sigama was there, blocking out the sky in a flare of white robes, ripping Yuu from her arms as he screamed and thrashed and cursed her as an abomination, as a monster, clawing at Sigama with bloody talons.

Sigama ripped him in two.

_Another mistake, _he sighed, and reached down to touch the gaping hole in her stomach with fingers that burned the blackness white.

Yuu slides off her shoulder, snoring softly. She eases him into her lap and goes back to stroking his hair. His heart beats evenly against her leg, warm and vibrant and alive.

Her own heart pangs. Minutes tick by before it beats again. She folds her arms protectively over Yuu and closes her eyes.

_You're not like me. You are truly alive…whatever you are. Whatever he made you to be. _

_We are not the same, after all. _

For the first time, she feels lonely.

* * *

A smile, slow and startled and sincere. Those eyes, like the shine of sea-water caught in the sunlight, deep and incandescent and warmer than the summer waves.

Her heart forgets to remember to beat. She has never felt so alive.

It all goes so horribly wrong.

The boy screams. Sigama's wings thrust her aside, wrenching the boy's hand from hers. She sees his irises turn dark.

The strangled cry tears its way out of her throat. Her heart shudders, and goes still.

_So many dead. _

* * *

It's been almost a millennia since that time.

Hands pull the scroll from her lap and toss it aside. "Come," Sigama says. "It's time you left Thorikos."

She doesn't answer. He takes her cold hands and hauls her unceremoniously to her feet. "Bathe and dress her," he orders the maid, and adds, turning back to her: "You'll want it. We'll be on the road a while."

She stirs. "You're coming with me?"

"You're coming with _me_." He switches to Iberian. The Greek maid stares at him wide-eyed before hurrying out to fetch water. "Greece is becoming restless. Tensions between Athens and Sparta are growing. It's time to leave." He picks up the scroll, glances over it idly, and drops it back onto the bed. "Egypt is having its summer festivals around now. And I've heard interesting things about one of the Dacian kingdoms. We'll travel there first, I think. If things haven't settled down here by then, who knows?" He shrugs, musing aloud now, his back to her. "The Latin cities are on the rise. I've been thinking of starting a settlement there. It wouldn't hurt to establish a name, leave a few trustworthy servants there to establish trade…and _you_," he adds, whirling on her, "It's well past time you left off your books. You need experience."

Aia wraps her thin arms around herself. "I have experience."

"No, you have books." Sigama touches a pale fingertip beneath her chin and studies her, the corners of his eyes creasing. "You were beginning to do well, back in Ilion." His grip tightens on her chin as she starts to look down. "Enough sulking, my Aia," he says, cold steel in his tone. "It's time you stop being a child." He lets go of her and turns abruptly, his white robes flaring around him. "And besides, you were right about one thing. Eternity grows tedious without company."

She looks up at him, wide-eyed. Sigama flaps a hand, his tone suddenly airy. "I think it's time I gave you siblings, hmm?"

* * *

The Dacian court is the closest thing to hell she's ever seen.

A warrior jostles her, sloshing her dress with foul-smelling beer. She sits stiffly, staring out over the crowded tables of roaring, cursing, drinking, squabbling men. The hall reeks of stale beer, sweat, vomit and piss. Women in tight dresses flit here and there, slender shapes in the smoky torchlight. The sun set long ago, but the celebrations here apparently go on until the last warrior has passed out in a puddle of his own piss. A third of the crowd is already slumped over the benches or sprawled on the floor. The ones still standing either don't notice, or care.

The man next to her jostles her again. Aia looks up into bloodshot eyes, smiles warmly, and goes back to ignoring him. The man leans over to his neighbor and grunts something she can hear perfectly well despite the noise below. She looks away, conscious of their eyes on her.

Sigama is on the other side of the table, seated with the king and his ministers. As she watches, Sigama grabs a tankard, drains it, and slams it back onto the table. He leans unsteadily over to his neighbor and shouts something in his ear. The battle-scarred noble roars with laughter and slaps his shoulder hard enough to make the cups rattle.

The man on her right leans towards her. "Enjoying yourself, m'lady?" he murmurs.

She looks up into intelligent dark eyes. "Very. Are all your celebrations so...exuberant?"

The young man grins. He's younger than the other men, and beardless, unlike the warriors around him. His dark blond hair falls loose to his broad shoulders, framing an angular face and those laughing dark eyes. "Nay, we're being downright sober tonight. A marriage-feast is a grave matter." He raises his cup to her with a mocking tilt of his head and drains it.

"Sober," Aia repeats. Her neighbor refills his glass. "Well, the happy couple is, anyways. The rest of us who won't be so lucky tonight have to find our happiness in the second best thing." He lifts the tankard. "More?"

She shakes her head. He looks at her full cup and grins. "Are you getting married too?"

Aia smiles faintly. "I find happiness in not waking up on the floor."

"Ah, but it's not about what you don't find happiness in but what you do." He leans back from the table to look her over. "Which I suppose isn't much, for a girl your age."

She lifts her chin a little. "I'm fourteen."

"No," he says in disbelief. "Ten at most."

"Thirteen," she sighs. She's grown again, but not much, and not enough to pass for the age she wants. He flings his head back and laughs. "Twelve it is! Old enough to drink, anyway. Come on, at least finish the cup. It's Phoenician wine, the good stuff, I promise."

She takes the carved goblet from him reluctantly. Her fingers brush his.

She falls.

Her fall ends before she can scream. She's on a table, held down, masked faces above her, and searing white light and pain–

She's chained, weighed down, clutching at her gaping stomach as black metal links pour out like blood between her fingers–

Fire rages in her veins, thirst racking her throat, God smiling down at her and the bittersweet taste of copper on her lips in a baptism of blood–

She is sitting on a bench in a crowded hall, wine soaking through her dress and a hand on her back to keep her from falling.

Across the table, Sigama's hungry pale gaze is fixed on her, a smile straining at his lips.

_So many and still not enough._

* * *

The marketplace is bustling. She strains on tiptoe to see over the wall of people, moving blindly forward, jostled by the crowd. Voices chatter, spilling over each other, melting from language to language, lungs pulsing and heartbeats pounding and the stink of sweat mixing with sea salt stinging her nose. Sigama's comforting void is gone. She can't see him him over the crowd, or Rigor. Her guards are somewhere behind her, separated by the tumble of people swarming to see the games.

She pushes her way through to where a niche in the merchants' stalls parts the crowd. A swinging elbow catches her as she squirms past and sends her staggering into the stall with a muffled cry.

Hands awkwardly help her up. She looks up into a dark face with luminous pale violet eyes.

A man shouts in Egyptian. The slave eases her to her feet and steps back as a heavy-set bald man shoves his way through the huddled cluster of slaves and grabs her rescuer roughly. "You, girl, get out of the way," he snarls in heavily accented Greek, and shoves the slave back into the cluster. The slave stumbles and almost falls, catching himself with his bound hands.

"Go!" the slaver barks, one hand on the whip at his belt. She's still staring at the slave. The slaver sees her eyes and turns ashy beneath his tan. He swears and takes a step back, fumbling with the whip.

Aia walks over to the huddled slaves, ignoring him. The other slaves shrink back, seeing her eyes and white hair escaping from her headscarf. Her rescuer looks down at her calmly, one eye on the slaver cursing behind her. He's half a head taller than the other men, lean rather than muscular, and darker even than his Egyptian captor. His eyes are slanted pale fires, flickering to follow the movement behind her.

She whirls and catches the whip as it snakes towards her, ignoring the sting as the tip wraps around her wrist. The slaver jerks back instinctively. The whip goes taut. Aia doesn't move.

The slaver's tan turns paler. He spits something at her in Egyptian and yanks on the whip. Aia digs her heels into the packed dirt and grips the braided leather and gives a sharp tug. The slaver stumbles, slack-jawed. She jerks the whip out of his hands before he can regain his balance and tosses it aside. "I'll be gone in a moment," she says in Greek, and turns back to the slave. He retreats a step, his gaze wary now. The other slaves are cowering against the back of the stall. Aia ignores them. "What's your name?" she asks in Dacian.

The slave stares at her uncomprehendingly. She tries again in halting Egyptian. "What is your name?"

"Urd." His voice is low and soft, at odds with his impassive expression. Aia glances back at the slaver. "How much?"

He stares at her blankly. She must have spoken the wrong language. "How much?" she asks again, speaking slowly in Egyptian. The slaver moves warily closer. "Four _deben_," he says.

"Two _deben_," Aia says, watching him eye the whip by her feet. The bewildered fury in the slaver's narrowed eyes is quickly giving way to the calculating look of a merchant about to make money. "Three _deben _at least." He sizes her up. "A healthy Egyptian male slave is worth four _deben _back in Egypt."

"Two _deben_," she says. "Each."

He shifts. "How many?"

She pauses; her guards are still missing, and she can't shepherd a handful of slaves through the crowded market by herself. She has enough money, though– Sigama always makes sure– and the slave doesn't look like he'll run.

"Do you have any women?" she asks. The slaver grunts. "Other side."

"Show me."

The slaver has obviously noticed the gold thread on her dress and put two and two together. He leads her back without a word.

She picks the two youngest girls, one barely older than herself, one younger, who cling to each other when the slaver barks an order at them. To her relief, Sigama is waiting by the stall as they return, flanked by Rigor and her guards.

Sigama barely glances at her, and she wonders how much he saw, and if he was watching her the whole time. He must be angry at her for making a scene.

And then she realizes that he's looking at Urd, and that Urd is staring back at him with faint curiosity in his luminous violet eyes.

Sigama strides over to the slaver, sweeping her aside. She drops back besides Rigor and the guards. The Dacian prince is shifting restlessly, a strange light in his dark eyes. He, too, is staring at Urd. Her skin prickles. She knows, suddenly, that if she were to touch him, two separate futures would flash before her eyes.

She shivers.

_Something is changing…_

* * *

And then everything is changing.

She remembers moments, flashes of color, of movement, faces, laughter, blurring from place to place and time to time.

Urd is in her room, bent over her worn copy of the _Odyssey_, tracing the faded parchment with a gentle fingertip as if afraid it will crumble at his touch.

* * *

Rigor is laughing, catching at her sleeve with wine-clumsy fingers, laughing and laughing as she shakes him away. She saw him downstairs, leaning forward, his sleeves rolled up and one tanned arm braced on the table as he gripped the soldier's callused hand and forced his arm flat.

_Come on, princess, a quick match!_

He's strong. Muscles flex and coil in his tanned forearm as he strains, no longer laughing. It takes all her strength to force his arm flat. She releases, red fingerprints pressed into the pale skin of her hand.

He laughs. There's a trace of awe in it, a newfound respect in his eyes even as he slaps her narrow back and sends her staggering. _Not bad, princess. Not bad at all._

A touch on her arm, feather-light. Urd holds out his hand, palm open, a silent question in his violet eyes. She hesitates, then lightly rests her palm over his. He takes her hand in his, his slender, callused fingers deft, turning her hand over, inspecting the fingerprints still fading from her skin with grave pale eyes.

She tugs her hand away, suddenly self-conscious. Urd releases her without resistance and turns his pale eyes to Rigor. There's a hint of reproach in them. Rigor looks away carelessly. _I'm getting sober. Come on, slave, let's have a drink._

* * *

They leave the caravan at dawn. The salty tang of the sea strikes them before the marble rooftops of the villa appear over the hill. Aia quickens her mare to a trot.

Yuu is playing inside the main hall. He looks up as she bursts in, still covered in road-dust and saddle-sore, her white hair slipping free of her scarf. She opens up her arms.

Yuu scrambles to his feet, his green eyes shining. "Who are you?" he asks, and she falters, and goes still, and smiles, a small, sad smile, and crouches to look up into his bright, curious eyes, and tells him.

* * *

The moon is scarlet, skimming over the black hills. Rigor's laughter peals through the still air. Aia flinches as he reappears at her side, skidding to a stop and spraying her with dirt.

_Aren't you tired? It's been almost a week, _she says, and Rigor flings his head back and laughs so loudly he must wake half the town. _Tired? I could run forever! _He moves faster than her eyes can follow, hands gripping her waist and swinging her off her feet. The cold air slaps her face. She grabs at his wrists. Rigor lets go. She stumbles dizzily to her feet, annoyed now, raising a hand. Rigor ducks and gives her a playful push.

Her feet leave the ground. Her scream is silent, no air to leave her lungs.

Urd catches her midair and almost drops her again. He lands heavily, looking stunned. Rigor's face reflects his shock.

She staggers to her feet. Her shoulder throbs, muscles searing. Her fingers close over it and jerk away, feeling the knot of bone jutting out. She makes a soundless whimper. Urd and Rigor watch her twist helplessly, hands half-stretched out, hesitant, wide-eyed.

Then Sigama is there in a sweep of wings, brushing them aside, standing over her, luminescent in the cold starlight. He touches her shoulder. This time she has breath enough to scream.

Muscle and bone click. There's a pop. The searing pain eases to a throb. She clutches her arm to her chest and curls up on the cold grass, whimpering like a child.

_Interesting, _Sigama says, and walks away.

* * *

They're sheltered beneath the garden awning, watching the sun rise. Urd is a still dark shadow on her right, his bare forearm cool against hers. Rigor leans against an ivied pole, his back to them. The only sound is the cicadas, strumming their wings, and the distant, endless beat of the sea.

Dawn touches her first scarlet finger to the horizon. The air lightens. The bobbing ivy leaves are suddenly edged with reddish gold.

The blunt line of Rigor's profile twists. He shifts, frowning.

The first ray of sunlight kisses his sandaled feet.

He screams.

* * *

Yuu has a thousand questions.

"Why can't Rigor and Urd go outside?"

"Ask Sigama," Aia murmurs, not looking up from the flower she's lowering into the earth.

"Sigama's underground again." Yuu squirms under her arm, tilting the flower wildly to one side. "Why can't Rigor and Urd go outside?"

She nudges him gently out of the way. "Why don't you ask them?"

"I did." Yuu tilts his head, his green eyes full of expectation. She turns away, bending over her flower. Her last batch of seeds withered. She's determined to have these bloom.

"Urd says he doesn't know." Yuu moves to her other side and thrusts his small face in hers. "Rigor said I was a stupid little brat and to go away. What's a brat? And why can't Urd and Rigor go outside anymore?"

"Rigor is just sulking," she says calmly, folding dirt over the flower's tendril-like roots. The memory of Rigor's scream, the nauseating stench of seared flesh, is far at the back of her mind. She tamps the dirt down around the flower's stem and reaches for the next one.

"Why is he sulking?" Yuu gives up on making her look at him and rolls onto his back, almost crushing the flower. Aia winces and moves protectively between him and her small patch of garden. "Because Sigama won't let him go above ground anymore."

"Why not?"  
"They can't go into the sunlight. They're special, like you and me."

"We can go outside. Why can't they go outside?"

She pats the second flower in place and reaches over to tweak his nose with grimy fingers. "Because it's too dangerous." She turns to face him and takes his hands in hers. Yuu goes stiff with attention. "You know how it hurts me to stay in the sun too long? How my skin blisters and peels?"

Yuu nods. She squeezes his hands. "Well, Rigor and Urd are even worse. If the sun touches them, they burn. So Sigama doesn't want them to go above ground into the sun."

"Why can't they come out at night?" Yuu starts to wriggle again. She tugs, pulling him back in. "Because Sigama said so. Isn't it time for you to go read?"

"Yes," Yuu says indifferently. "Why is Rigor so much stronger than you?"

She tenses. "Is he?" she says evenly. Yuu nods. "He told me. He said he's much much stronger than anyone! Almost as strong as Sigama!"

"Is that so," she murmurs. "Well, he is very strong."

"Stronger than you?"

"Yes."

"Stronger than Urd?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't know, Yuu. That's how not knowing works."

Yuu digests that. "Why aren't you that strong?"

"Reading," she says firmly. "Go."

He clambers obediently to his feet and trots off. Aia turns back to her flowers. The thoughts she's been trying to stifle come spilling over again.

_I don't know, Yuu. I don't know so many things anymore. I don't know if I'm alive or not. I don't know why Sigama and Urd and Rigor have no heartbeat, yet you and I do. I don't know why I'm not as strong. I don't know why I can't drink human blood like they must. If Sigama has answers, he won't tell. He's been locked up in his laboratories for months now. _

_I don't know. There's so much I don't know. _

The flower droops. She raises it gently and pats more dirt down around it.

A heartbeat.

A dark underground room full of bodies, of beating hearts.

Rigor's impossible strength, almost as strong as Sigama.

The taste of Urd's blood on her lips.

Visions of the end of the world.

Yuu, a child once more.

The black sword, the boy with frightened dark eyes, black smoke and blood coating her lungs. Ashera.

And the boy with sea-warm eyes, being carried far, far away...

_We the children born of blood…_

Aia stands. She doesn't understand. There are too many pieces to the puzzle, too many visions, too many fragments of time.

But she can learn. There are always answers. And she has all the time in the world.

She dusts the dirt off her hands and turns back to the villa.

**End of Part One**

**A/N**

Part one is finished! The pieces are in place, the subtle hints, the vague and blurry flashbacks...onwards to an actual plot. Lol.

I hope you all enjoyed part one. Thank you so much to everyone who has read this experimental story of what-ifs and manga hints. Part two will continue on to beloved (and not so beloved) characters such as Lest Karr, Crowley Eusford, Krul, and of course our favorite hella-gay drama queen Ferid Bathory *sighs*

See you all in part two!

**-SpiritofaRose**


	14. They That Worshipped

**Part Two:**

**The Present**

_They That Worshipped_

Between the conception

And the creation

Falls the Shadow.

_Life is very long._

—T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men

**She remembers the past. **

Fire. The world burns. Salt blazes and blood reeks and black tears stream down Yu's face as he raises the black sword. Salt and fire and blood.

Sigama lifts his head. A trickle of her blood runs down his chin. His eyes gleam in the faint flickering candlelight.

Did he see it? Is he watching the world burn? Does he see his children, his creations, drowning in the seas of blood and salt and fire of their own making?

His cool palm cups her cheek. His silky braid tickles her cheek. He smells of marble, of coldness and stillness. She looks up into his alabaster eyes, and sees blood and salt and fire.

_Does he know?_ the voice in her mind whispers.

Sigama smiles.

_Well done, my oracle. _

* * *

"You have no heartbeat," the boy whispers.

She folds her fingers over his, pressing his hand over her heart. "Listen," she says.

A single beat. His eyes widen, awe mixing with the shock and horror on his face. He sucks in a breath. His own heart fills the air with frantic rhythm.

"How?"

The words tumble out. "My father– Sigama– we are the new gods. The new hope of the world. To never die– to live forever–"

"To become a god," he breathes, eyes shining.

"Yes." She clutches his hand. "Sigama can Turn you. He can make you like me. He says he's chosen you."

"How?"

"Aia," Sigama says behind her, and she falls silent. The boy squeezes her hand.

_Thank you. _

It isn't until the door closes behind them that she hears the first scream.

* * *

"Rain," Yu says.

She blinks up at him. His green eyes are very dark against the hazy grey sky as it blurs and refocuses around him. Her head is in his lap, his head bent so close his nose is almost touching hers.

Aia gingerly wiggles her toes. The rest of her body reluctantly reanimates. Pain throbs through her temples. She winces.

"Rain," Yu says again, insistently. His eyes are so round and innocent that for a moment she forgets the visions she'd seen reflected in them. She sighs and closes her eyes again. "It's not raining right now, Yu."

"Your eyes." A grubby fingertip gently pokes her cheek. "They're raining."

Her eyes flicker open. She touches her cheek. It's damp.

Yu scoots back as she sits up, ignoring the pain in her head. Another tear is trickling its way down her nose. She can feel wetness seeping under her chin.

She can't remember the last time she cried. She hadn't known she still could.

"Rain," Yu repeats, his green eyes wide.

"No," she says. "Not rain. Tears."

Yu cocks his head. He must be at least ten, and new words are growing scarce. "Tears?"

"It's called crying." She laughs softly. "I'm crying, Yu."

He points to her damp cheeks. "Tears-crying?"

"No." She guides his hand to her face, lets him try to catch a trembling teardrop on one fingertip. "These little drops of water, they're called tears. When you cry, they come out of your eyes. No, don't lick it."

"Salty," Yu says, finger already in his mouth. Aia sighs. "Yes. They're salty. No, I don't know why. They just are."

"Can I cry?"

"People only cry when they're sad, Yu."

"Oh." He digests that. "Why are you sad?"

It hadn't been the vision. She's seen the same scene play out so many times that only the throbbing headache reminds her of the pain that will come, some day. She can only spend so many decades dreading the future before time eats away at even that. No, it hadn't been the vision, or even the headache that's now pounding her skull with increasing force, as if Hephaestus has taken up residence there.

But the vision had made her remember.

A tear trickles down the line of her nose. She blinks as her vision blurs. "Oh, gods," she says, wiping her eyes with the hem of her tunic. Yu watches, fascinated, as more tears spill down her cheeks. "Crying," he says happily.

"I don't _want _to," she says, her voice muffled in her tunic. "I don't want Sigama to see– oh, gods, it's getting worse." She sniffles. "Promise me you won't tell him, Yu. Please?"

"Okay," Yu says. "I won't. You must be really sad, Aia. You're crying a _lot_."

She sniffles again resignedly. She doesn't like when her body suddenly does things she doesn't want it to. She's used to it not doing very much at all. She hasn't felt this human since–

"Oh, _no_," she moans, as the tears start pouring down in earnest. She hiccups back a sob. Yu claps his hands. "Now you're making weird noises!"

It's been decades. Almost a century. And _still _she remembers as if it was yesterday. She can still see his shining eyes, warm as the sea, the feeling of her slow and halting heart beating a little quicker against his palm.

Time erodes all things. And yet, and yet–

And yet the memory springs up again like a vision, and the hazy grey sky is swallowed up by the past.

* * *

**A/N**

It's back! Thank you as always to the people who left reviews (and reminded me to update...)

Hope you enjoy part two!

-SpiritofaRose


	15. When the World Was Theirs

_When the World Was Theirs _

"Between the emotion

And the response

Falls the Shadow

_Life is very long. _

—T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men

_1304 B.C._

_Ilion_

A year has passed since they came to Ilion.

Sigama has been appointed an official member of the king's court. Guests don't visit as often anymore, which is good, because Sigama is never in their apartment. His small fleet of merchant ships keeps him busy, when he's not off accompanying the king and court to gatherings and games and ceremonies.

Even when he's home, Aia rarely sees him. The queen has offered to take her on as a royal handmaiden, along with other unmarried young women from noble families. The queen herself is young, the king's second wife, and Greek, the daughter of a Minoan king and Hittite princess. Her name is Amynta, a Greek name, but the Trojans call her Arinna, after their sun goddess.

Standing meekly behind Sigama, waiting for the ceremony to be over, Aia understands why.

The queen is a pale wisp in the king's shadow, hidden by silken veils and the handmaids clustered protectively around her. Aia stares at them through her sheer blue veil, and drops her gaze back to the floor. Sigama has already explained the ceremony to her. It's a common practice among the noble families at court: the girl's dowry is given to the king, who promises to find her a noble husband when she comes of age. Until then, she'll serve the queen as a handmaiden and live and sleep in her private chambers, until Sigama grows bored of Ilion.

The king pauses. Sigama starts to speak, calling down blessings upon the king. Aia glares at his back. She doesn't entirely like this. But Sigama had said _you need experience with humans_, and that was that.

Sigama's pale fingers twitch behind his back. Aia snaps back to attention as the queen emerges from the king's shadow, leaving her handmaidens behind. A soft, husky voice with a faint Ionian accent comes from the layers of veils. "Welcome, Mantaia."

Aia curtsies low. "I'm honored, your majesty."

A pair of ivory hands emerge from the folds of silk. Two handmaids step forward to take the queen's veils as she lifts them up.

Aia forgets to take a breath.

Sigama bows low. "An honor," he murmurs, dropping his gaze. The queen's ruby lips curve upwards. "I am glad to accept your daughter into my company, Lord Sigama."

Sigama's fingers twitch again. Aia flattens her gaze to the floor.

The queen is the most beautiful woman she's ever seen. Every feature, from the perfect arch of her cupid's-bow lips to the delicate slant of her nose, has been sculpted by some god's hand. A single honeyed dark curl escapes her crown of braids to rest on one carved pale cheek. Her darkly-lashed grey-green eyes are bright and warm.

She beckons. Aia approaches the throne and lifts her veil before lowering her head again. Sigama had instructed her carefully for this part of the ceremony. _Never look her in the eye unless she gives you permission. It's common for the queen to want to look at her new handmaid– and, of course, for the king to take note of any potential mistresses, though I doubt you'll have that problem. Just look straight ahead, make sure your veil covers your ears, and don't look at the king, whatever he does. _

Slender fingers tilt her face up. She resists the urge to look down as the queen inspects her face, faint curiosity in her lovely eyes. "Gods-blessed, indeed," she murmurs. There's no malice or repulsion in her voice. Aia wonders if perhaps beauty as exotic as the queen's carries its own whispers with it.

She's grown again, she knows. She's still a head shorter than the youngest handmaiden, but the baby fat has finally begun to melt away from her face, her snub nose to lengthen and sharpen. The tips of her ears still curve to the slightest point, and her eyes are too red to be human, but for once, everyone treats her like one.

She has to struggle to adjust to her new waking hours, and to the noise. The nine other handmaidens are always chattering, their voices rising and falling in tune to the rattle of the looms, swapping fashion ideas and marriage rumors and court gossip. From them, she learns how to card wool and string a loom, how to dye a dress or tell a bachelor from a married man by the hem of his coat and the cut of his beard. The others are always fussing over her, as the youngest. They paint her lips and line her eyes and brush color onto her pale cheeks, trying to make her look older so that the young men will notice her.

The queen likes her. In her private chambers, Aia listens to the plots and intrigues of the distant Hittite court, as well as the secrets of every noble in Ilion's own walls. Now, more than ever, she understands why Sigama is right, and Lady Rumor is dangerous. A whisper from the right advisor, or a murmur from the queen's favorite maid, and suddenly a noble's son has been sent off to some distant court, or the daughter of one of the princes abruptly betrothed to some foreign lord.

And she learns how to listen while talking, and when to talk and when to listen. She learns which rumors to keep to herself, which to remember for later, and which to carry quickly to the queen.

She barely sees Sigama. Even at gatherings, when the women are allowed to mix with the men, he only pauses to greet her and to remark how the new guest is some Hittite prince, or whether she's heard that the king's newest mistress has already given birth to a son?

And she smiles, and nods, and coincidentally finds herself murmuring blessings and congratulations to the king, or greeting the new guest in his own dialect, which she picked up from a maid a few months ago.

Only six months have passed when Sigama summons her to his chambers for a rare visit.

"The queen wants to marry you off to Laomedon," he says, sipping from his goblet. The dark red liquid is too thick to be wine; Aia catches herself licking her lips, and swallows hard. "The king's son?"

"The king's second-born, _legitimate _son." Sigama finishes his drink and licks his stained lips. "And he's young. Only eighteen."

"Oh." She tries to remember which one is Laomedon. She's seen most of the king's sons, even the bastards, at gatherings, but she's never been introduced to most of them. "What does the king think?"

"Oh, he's agreed. He'd be very happy to keep my wealth at court." Sigama chuckles. "He's quite clever, for a human. He knows we won't be staying long."

"What did you tell them?"

"That you're too young, of course. You still only look, what, ten?"

"Twelve," she murmurs. "According to the maids."

Sigama flaps a hand dismissively. "The queen has agreed to wait for the betrothal until you begin to bleed. In the meanwhile, the prince wants to be formally introduced to you. You'll meet next month at the gathering for the new moon."

Her head snaps up. "You agreed?"

Sigama throws his head back and laughs. "What, you don't want to be married off?"

She just looks at him. Sigama chuckles. "I think you will find that biologically, you differ very little from the humans. But yes. It's a contract, nothing more." He uncoils from the sofa and rises. "I'm interested in this young prince," he says. "He may prove very important, indeed. We shall see." He skirts the low table and stands over her; she has to crane her head back to look up at him as he cups cool fingers beneath her chin. "Encourage the courtship," he says. "Learn about this man. Use what I have taught you. And Aia...tell me what you see."

She swallows. "Yes, Father."

"Good." He releases her and turns back to his empty goblet. "Visit me after the gathering. You may very well get your wish."

She curtsies low and leaves, her mind swirling with questions.

* * *

"Aia." Queen Arinna beckons her over. "Come here, child."

Karuwa and Ulanasu, two of the queen's handmaidens, nudge her forward, sharing smiles. She hears Ulanasu whisper in Karuwa's ear as she skirts the attendant hovering beside the king's throne and leans over the queen's shoulder. "Yes, your majesty?"

"I want you to meet my son." The queen rises and takes her hand. "Laomedon, come here. This is Lord Sigama's daughter, Mantaia."

Aia curtsies low and peers up through her pale lashes, curious. The young man standing behind the queen looks older than eighteen. He's dressed more soberly than the other princes in a fitted blue tunic and a dark brown overcoat that matches his eyes. His clothes, his boots, even the knife at his belt is of good quality, but worn and faded from use. His beard is close-cropped, but full, belying his age. The brown hair tumbling across his forehead in loose curls is honeyed from the sun; his skin is darkly tanned, his teeth flashing white as he smiles– a little uncertainly, Aia thinks– and bows. "Lady Aia," he murmurs.

She straightens. "My lord. It's an honor to meet you. I heard your last raid on Ionia was tremendously successful."

Laomedon tenses slightly. The king, listening from his throne, chuckles and rises to join them. "The girl has keen ears and a talent for languages," he says, his black eyes amused.

"Your majesty flatters me," Aia says, lowering her gaze. "I have the benefit of excellent teachers, that is all."

"You've been educated?" The prince raises a dark brow. "By who?"

Aia lifts her chin. The prince meets her gaze fully, and draws a sudden breath, his own eyes wide. She pauses, and when he doesn't say anything, she says, "His majesty your father has been so gracious as to ask a priest to tutor me in your history and arts. And when I was a child my father hired tutors from Athens to teach me reading and writing." Which is a lie, technically– Sigama has always preferred to oversee her education himself– but the king is nodding, satisfied. "Lord Sigama has mentioned your proficiency in the arts. Tell us, how many languages do you speak?"

"Four, my lord." Another lie; she can fumble her way through almost seven now, not counting Old Hattian, but the priest has only been teaching her for a few months.

"When you were a child?" Laomedon raises his eyebrows again. "Surely you are still but a child."

"She is twelve, almost of marriageable age," the queen intercedes, resting a hand on his arm. Aia notices the subtle pressure of her fingers crinkling the fabric of his sleeve, and the way Laomedon's gaze flickers to the king. She can't see Sigama from where she stands, her back to the crowd, but she can feel the weight of his pale gaze on her, and knows he can hear every word, every sudden breath or quickened heartbeat from across the hall.

She lifts her chin higher. "I know I am still young, my lord, but surely the mind is not counted by the age of the body."

How does Sigama make his voice so soothing? Hers is too high. She takes a deep breath and goes on, softer, "Why else do we have the oldest and wisest teach the young, if we didn't think they could pass on their wisdom without adding their years?"

"Are you saying you are as wise as your teachers?"

"No, my lord. Only that, with a head as young and empty as mine was, I must have learned _something_."

The king laughs and claps Laomedon on the shoulder. "See? If nothing else, the girl has a clever wit."

The prince looks startled– then, slowly, the edges of his mouth crinkle upwards. He bows. "Wise indeed, for one so young. It is a pleasure to meet you, Lady Aia."

The queen smiles and releases his arm. "There you are, Lord Sigama," she says, and Aia goes still. She hadn't even sensed him

Sigama rests a light hand on her shoulder. "Did you need me, my queen?" he asks, his fingers finding the taut muscle in Aia's shoulder and applying pressure. Her shoulders droop. Aia takes a deep breath and relaxes, avoiding the prince's curious gaze as he looks from her to Sigama.

"My lord has something he wishes to discuss with you," the queen says lightly, and transfers her grip to the king's arm. King Muwatalli sighs and pats her hand. "Ah, yes. This way."

"Laomedon, escort Lord Sigama's daughter while we are gone," Queen Arinna adds. The prince tenses, and bows. "Of course, Mother," he says, and offers his arm. Sigama gives Aia's shoulder another quick squeeze and sweeps off, his purple robes trailing behind him. Aia reaches up to take the prince's arm, feeling like a puppet whose strings have suddenly been cut.

"So tell me," Laomedon says, before the silence can grow awkward, "How did you know of the Ionian raid? Not many knew of my return. The heralds are supposed to announce it later tonight."

This time she doesn't lie. "I live in the queen's chambers with her handmaids. If there's a secret the maids don't know about, the gods themselves must be keeping it safe."

Laomedon chuckles. "Very true. I remember growing up listening to them gossip over the weaving. It always astonishes me how much they know." The corner of his mouth quirks. "There are even secrets regarding me that I am not told, apparently."

She looks up at him, startled. Surely he knows. The queen must have told him. There's no reason not to...unless…

"Have you tried the wine?" The prince leads her over to a table. "My father had an Iberian cask opened for the libations. It's quite good." He nods to a nearby slave, who pours two cups. Aia sips hers tentatively. The wine is excellent, smooth and sweet on her tongue, but bile rises in her throat. _It's been too long_, she thinks. How many months has it been since Sigama last let her drink? Not since they came to Ilion.

"What do you think?"

She refocuses on the conversation. "It's very good. Thank you."

"You look pale. Is the room too stifling?"

She manages a smile. "I'm afraid I usually look like this."

"So your eyes have always been that color?" He hesitates. "I wondered, whether illness, or some spell–"

She looks down. "Yes. My father is god-blessed, so my people say." Another lie.

"It is true, I have never seen eyes like yours before, in all my travels." He finishes his cup and hands it back to the slave. "It must be strange, being marked so. Is it a blessing or a curse?"

"My father says blessings and curses are what you make of them." She takes another sip. Her stomach is starting to hurt.

The prince reaches for the cup as she tilts it up again and closes her eyes. A murmur to the slave, and both their cups are whisked away and returned rinsed and filled with water. Laomedon smiles at her surprise. "I don't like to drink much at gatherings," he says. "My father says a warrior should always keep a clear head."

"Even at home?"

"Especially at home." He touches his cup to hers. "Zeus' blessings, Lady Aia."

"To you and your house," she murmurs, and drinks.

She watches him over the rim of her cup as they drink. There's still the edge of tension in the line of his shoulders, the subtle way his gaze flicks over the room, but it's not uncertainty like she first thought. He has a warrior's casual stance, relaxed but battle-ready. She wonders, again, why the second son of a minor king has caught Sigama's attention. Why this human? He's not as big or broad-shouldered as the other king's sons. He's not the heir, and Sigama doesn't care about human politics, anyway, unless they directly involve him. So why this human?

Laomedon catches her staring and raises an eyebrow. She lowers her gaze, suddenly grateful for the lack of blood pumping through her veins. "You said the heralds are announcing your arrival later tonight?"

"My success, technically. But yes. Why?"

"It's a poor surprise when the surprise himself is wandering around the gathering in plain sight," she says.

Laomedon's lips quirk. "Fair enough. I wasn't supposed to join the gathering until much later, when I had bathed and eaten a proper meal. My ship only just arrived. But my mother asked me to escort her, so…" he shrugs.

So that's why he didn't know. And that's why he's dressed so plainly, when the other sons are in ceremonial robes. She sees the ironic twist to his smile, and presses her own lips together. But he's already guessed. Smart lad.

"I wonder why," she murmurs. Laomedon shrugs. "You live with the maids. You tell me," he says.

"Even the maids don't know everything," she says, and changes the subject. "So, what cities did you raid? How far did you go? Did you perform any great deeds for the bards to sing of tonight?"

The prince throws his head back and laughs. He has the same deep-throated laugh as the king, sudden and full of good humor. "If the bards have begun to sing about raids, Ilion has sunk low indeed," he says, still chuckling.

"Well, the bards may not want to hear of it, but I do." Aia leans against the table, cradling her cup in both hands. Laomedon tilts his head, sober again. "Are you certain? My sisters hate it when I talk of the raids. I assumed womenfolk didn't like to hear them."

Aia blinks. There's no condescension or malice in his tone; he simply sounds puzzled. She curls her fingers tighter around the carved stem of her cup. "So I'm a woman now?"

It takes him a breath to catch on, then he makes a face. "Ah," he says, and scratches his beard. "I am sorry. I did not mean to offend. You simply look–" he grimaces and changes what he was about to say– "Your people must be wise above their years indeed, to introduce them to gatherings so young."

"And you should have been a diplomat," she says, straight-faced. Laomedon grins crookedly. "Aye, but Father can't afford to start too many wars, even if my elder brother would be glad to finish them."

Aia glances across the room, where Tasos, the king's heir, is laughing heartily with the other young noblemen. "Indeed," she murmurs, and changes the subject. Her throat is too dry. It hurts to swallow. "What cities did you raid?"

"None worth mentioning." He sees her expression, and relents. "We never crossed the Aegean. We struck Myrinos, in Limnos– we've been forced to venture farther and farther across the sea, now that Imbros is an ally– but it was a brief raid, just a quick skirmish with some merchants' vessels. We seized their gold and some bronze tripods, but storms brewing off the coast forced us to retreat. The winds blew us deeper into the Aegean. We were lucky to run ashore at Samothrace. The Sanctuary of the Great Gods sheltered us for the night, and the priests' blessing sent a good breeze at our back. It was well-deserved, too. We gave them two of our captured tripods. There is a great forge at the sanctuary, and the priests said they melt all bronze offerings to make statues of every god's name brought to them, so that no god is left unworshipped. They said–" He breaks off. "Are you certain I'm not boring you?"

Aia glances over her shoulder. King Muwatalli has returned from his talk with Sigama. He's standing with the young men, one hand resting on Tasos' shoulder, his dark eyes crinkled beneath their thick black brows. The heir is gesturing fluently, flushed from his cups and pride. He makes a stabbing motion, raises one arm in victory, and drains his cup as the other men clap; retelling his best campaigns, Aia thinks.

The queen has retreated back to her throne, attended by her women. Karuwa and Ulanasu are whispering together as usual. Brisa and Criseus are seated on footstools by the queen's feet, sipping their spiced wine and pretending not to notice Lavinia flirting with some young lord from across the room. Hesione and her sister are idling behind the throne, gossiping softly, and Lilli is retreating back from the tables with a platter of food. Only Aliwasu is silent by the queen's side.

Their gazes meet. Aliwasu's dark eyes flicker beneath her sheer veil. Her chin dips.

The movement is tiny, negligible. So are the movements of the other handmaidens as eight pairs of eyes swivel behind their veils, and the whispers change casually, and her name is inflected with envy and pride and good grace.

The contact lasts for a heartbeat. Aia smiles up at Laomedon and rests a small pale hand on his sleeve.

"Not at all," she says, and nudges him towards the nearby balcony. "Tell me about the Sanctuary of the Great Gods. The bards will sing of the raids. I want to hear about the statues."

He tucks her arm more securely in his and folds his broad callused palm over hers. "As the queen's maiden commands," he murmurs, and leads her out from under the approving eyes of the queen and her maids, and Sigama.


	16. And Thine

**_And Thine _**

"Between the desire

And the spasm

Between the essence

And the descent

Falls the Shadow

_For Thine is the Kingdom. _

—T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men

_1303 B.C._

_Ilion_

The blood carves dark streams over her naked skin.

Aia sucks in a breath. Sigama's cool palm tightens over the back of her skull as she starts to lift her head. She drinks greedily, blood dripping down her chin.

"Well?" he asks at last, and she shakes her head, licking her scarlet-stained lips.

"Nothing," she says. "Nothing at all."

Sigama catches her wrist as she starts to wipe the blood away. "Pity," he murmurs, and brushes a thumb over her chin and licks it thoughtfully. "It's only been a few days. Perhaps I should wean you off again."

"I haven't seen anything new in decades." She yawns, suddenly sleepy. "It's always the same vision. Fire, salt, and blood. The world burning. Yuu. Maybe nothing has changed."

Sigama doesn't answer. His hand slides down her back, his silky hair tickling her chin as he licks the blood from her skin, his head bent low over her pale chest, her stomach, the curve of her left leg.

She sinks down into his restraining grip, her head lolling back. The frescoes overhead blur in a sea of greens and reds and blues. _A bath, _she thinks absently. _Maybe some of that perfume Lilli has been talking about, the one that _doesn't _reek of oils. And a wreath of something, to disguise his present–_

The warm wet rasp swirling over the inside of her knee vanishes; she finds herself discarded gently onto a pile of bloodstained robes. Sigama licks his ruby lips. "The bath is ready," he says, turning away. "You may return in a few weeks."

"That long?" she says, dismayed. Sigama rinses his hands in the bowl and reaches for a fresh tunic. "Has your heart been beating that way for long?" he asks, ignoring her question. Aia clasps a hand to her chest self-consciously. Her heart quivers. It's still slower than a human heart, but it beats steadily to its own grudging pace now. She's never felt so alive. So human.

"Only for the past few weeks, I think."

A lie. But she's been getting better at them. Sigama doesn't seem to notice. "Hm. Take note of it. If it continues for long, we shall wait until it's slowed again for you to drink."

She swallows hard. "Yes. It worries me, the change. It feels too…human."

Sigama softens. "Do not worry." He pauses to cup a finger beneath her chin. "You are mine, now. You will always be mine. A few biological quirks will not change that. Go. Bathe. You don't want to be late."

"Yes, Father." _Stop beating so loudly, heart. _"Thank you."

He flaps a hand at her, shooing her away. She wipes her feet carefully on the stained robes, and retreats.

The bath is still warm. She slips gratefully beneath the surface of the water and waits for her heart to stop thumping against her ribs.

The lies are getting easier. Even slipping the faint inflection of fear into her voice was easy. She _is _afraid– afraid that her heart will go back to its marble stillness. Afraid that these exhilarating new feelings will die with it. Afraid of losing this newfound taste of what she once was.

She understands now what Sigama meant. Twisting her own emotions, her own thoughts and fears, to lace her words with sincerity and hide the lies in truth, grows easier every day. She's still careful to keep the lies simple and scarce around Sigama, but the adrenaline of lying to _him– _her heart betrays her voice. She has to be careful. Time. She has all the time in the world. Time enough to perfect even her traitor heartbeat.

But time is something that is suddenly precious, these days.

A bell tolls outside. Her heart thumps.

The ships have returned.

* * *

It's easy to pick Laomedon out from the crowd of bustling sailors. He's bent over the hatch, shoulder to shoulder with crew members as they pass amphora brimming with honey and wine through to the waiting slaves on the docks. His dark hair shines like carved mahogany under the blistering sun. His bronzed shoulders are bare, his tunic sleeves rolled back to show glistening muscle beneath sun-dark skin.

Aia waits on the docks until the unloading is finished. Troy, as the westernmost port of the Hittite empire, is kept wealthy off the merchant ships and trade that pass through her port, but piracy has been a time-honored tradition of obtaining battle experience for sons born in peace time since the first ships set sail for unknown shores. She knows how crucial it is that Laomedon, as the second son, proves his mettle.

Though, judging from today's haul, the queen will not have to worry about her second-born. They must have captured two ships, at least. She even glimpses a glint of gold ingots as the slaves pile the stolen goods onto the waiting carts.

One of the sailors recognizes her. Aia keeps her eyes lowered demurely beneath her veil as he grins and trots over to the prince. She's well-dressed today in lavender robes embroidered with gold and an opaque white veil that hides her eyes, ears, and hair from curious passersby. Her clothing is probably what gave her away. There's only one daughter of a lord who would be waiting for the prince's ship to arrive.

Laomedon straightens up and passes a hand over his glistening forehead. In the glare of the sun, she can't tell if the expression on his face is surprise or mild resignation. He mutters something to a crew member, ducks out of line, and comes striding down the gangway towards her.

"My lady," he says, bowing low. "What brings one of the queen's handmaidens down to the docks?" His tone is wry.

"I came to see if the high priest of Tarhun was wrong," she says, hands folded innocently behind her back.

The prince blinks. "Why–" he hesitates, frowns, sighs, and asks, "Why would the high priest be wrong?"

She shrugs. "He said the omens foretold your ship would return tomorrow."

"You've been wagering with priests again," Laomedon says, reproach in his voice again.

"Of course not," she says. "_That_ would be sacrilegious. We just have a friendly agreement that if, say, your ship were to arrive today, at late noon, then he will let me offer a sacrifice to one of the lesser gods with my own hands."

"Which only violates three of the sacred laws," Laomedon says dryly.

"Well, yes. But such a thing could never happen, because he is the high priest of Tarhun, and even if he happened to make a mistake and misread the omens, it's impossible that your ship would arrive today, at exactly late noon, three days earlier than expected, and not at any point tomorrow or later. Which is what we made our friendly agreement on." She smiles through her veil.

Laomedon blinks again. "There were exceptionally good winds–" he breaks off, frowns, adds, "and it's impossible to know exactly when the ships will come in–" and sees the corners of her mouth curling beneath her veil, and stops.

"That is what the high priest said," she agrees.

Laomedon shakes his head. "Gods," he mutters, and scratches his beard. "Gods-blessed," he adds as an afterthought, and shakes his head again. "Will you really offer a sacrifice?"

She looks up into his dark hazel eyes, and lies. "Of course not. That _would _be sacrilegious."

Laomedon relaxes a little. "Does the high priest know yet?"

"I don't think so," she says, straight-faced. "He is still finishing the wineskin we opened when we made our little friendly agreement."

The prince purses his lips. The corners of his mouth are twitching. "I see. Well, my lady, since the high priest has a temper when he's in his cups, and since _I _am drenched in sweat and no doubt offending your lovely nose, will you give me the honor of accompanying you back to the palace?"

She curtsies low. "The honor is mine, my lord." She pauses. "Also, the water for your bath should be heated by now. I asked a slave to prepare one in your chambers shortly before I left the palace."

The prince stares at her. She tilts her head. "My lord?"

"Gods-blessed," Laomedon mutters again, and shakes his head. "Let me give orders to the crew. I'll be right back." He looks around at the bustling docks. "Where is your escort?"

Aia looks down. The light of amusement in Laomedon's eyes fades. He touches a callused fingertip under her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. Usually his touch would send her heart beating faster than she thought possible, but the stern disapproval in his face makes it go still.

"You are very clever, my lady," Laomedon says, speaking low so that only she can hear. "I know that you are not like most of the women. But _you cannot travel alone_. It is unsafe and unwise. You know how dangerous rumors are. And many men would seize the chance to kidnap you and sell you at some foreign court. You know this. I _know _you know this."

"Yes," she murmurs, but he isn't done.

"You are too clever to act like a silly child, ignorant of danger." He grips her chin as she tries to lower her head. "Promise me you will not do this again."

She swallows. "I promise," she whispers. The delight at surprising him is gone. Her pride stings. How can she tell him that she is stronger than the average man, maybe even stronger than him? How can she tell him that she is one of the things that make men shiver and mark themselves with the sign against evil, when the night grows dark?

Why, why does she _want _to tell him? Why does the truth demand to be told when lies are such a relief?

Laomedon sighs. "Gods, you make me worry sometimes," he says, and brushes a rough thumb over the layer of sheer fabric on her cheek. Her heart beats again. "Now, before I go tell the crew to finish unloading without me, are you going to show me that trinket you've been hiding so protectively behind your back?"

Aia curls her fingers over the statuette of a tiny lion, half-hidden in her skirts. She's not used to human eyes picking up on such small things– but then, Laomedon surprises her. It's one of the things she likes about it. One of the many things.

Scoldings, however, are _not _one of them. She smiles sweetly up at him. "That depends. Did you bring me back anything from across the sea?"

"What? Something the lady doesn't know?" The prince raises his eyebrows. "Truly, the gods still perform miracles."

"Maybe I just wanted to give you the satisfaction of surprising me."

"Kind as always, my dear lady." His fingertips brush her arm, a quick, warm gesture. Her heart remembers that it likes to beat faster around him. "Wait here a moment."

Aia watches him rejoin the sailors, fingers clasped over the echo of his fingertips on her arm. Her heart thrums.

_Alive, alive, alive, _it sings. The sunlight is warm on her skin, warm on the dock beneath her slippers, warm inside her chest. The air hums of salt in the water, salt in the sweat shining on skin, of sun-warmed gold and voices tumbling over each other and the scream of seagulls high over the city walls.

Aia tightens her grip on the small statuette clasped behind her back. Its carved edges dig into her palm. She savors the sensation, the warmth, the vivacy.

_Alive, alive, alive. _

* * *

The queen's chambers are quiet today.

Aia sets the bundle of wool she's been carding into a basket and picks up another and tugs her comb through the matted strands. The looms clack rhythmically above her as Brisa and Karuwa move their shuttles over the dyed wool. Lilli, the second youngest, sits across from her, her lips pressed into a thin line as she cards her own basket of wool. The other handmaids are off with the queen, taking a walk about the walltop to enjoy the sea breeze.

Lilli sets her wool back in its basket. "Chamber-pot," she mutters, gathering up her skirts. Aia doesn't look up from her task. She likes the mindless work of carding. Her mind empties as her fingers untangle the knots.

She notices, with serene detachment, how Karuwa watches Lilli leave, and looks at her through the threads of the loom. She keeps her head low over her work. One of the shuttles pauses, and rejoins the rhythm as Karuwa murmurs, "Has she gone to see him yet?"

Brisa's slender fingers never falter over the loom. "Not yet. Aliwasu is with him now."

"He's been ill often, these days."

"I heard the priest say it's the cold winds from the Isles. The seasons are changing."

"So you don't believe in the curse?" Karuwa asks curiously.

Brisa shrugs without changing her pace. "He's always been a sickly child."

"Arinna believes in it. You can tell by the way she talks to the priests. She thinks her god Apollo is behind it."

"The king doesn't," Brisa counters.

"The king has five healthy male heirs. He doesn't care about Ganymede."

Aia's fingers fumble with a knot.

"That's not true," Brisa says sharply. "The king is a good father. He just doesn't tarry with superstition."

"It's not superstition if it's true."

"So you believe in this Apollo?"

Karuwa shrugs. "All the gods are real. Just because we worship them by different names and faces doesn't change that."

"Where did you hear that?"

"The priest at the temple of foreign gods."

Brisa snorts. "That priest? He's so young he's still beardless. I've heard the priest of Tarhun talking of him. He's full of crazy theories about the gods."

"The priest of Tarhun is an old drunkard," Karuwa says dismissively.

"Hush, you. You just like this priest because he's handsome."

"We~ell, he _is_."

Aia tunes them out as their whispers turn to old gossip. Her serene mood is gone. Her thoughts are racing.

_Ganymede_. She's never met the king's youngest legitimate son, but she knows the whispers. She _only _knows the whispers. No one she knows has seen the prince, or if they have, they never speak of it. There are rumors of a curse, of a strange sickness since birth, that the queen is growing increasingly desperate for a cure for her youngest child.

Aia's fingers move haphazardly through the wool. The rumors have been rising again. And queen Arinna has looked pale and worn lately…

And that one whisper, that she overheard only once, accidentally, from Aliwasu, the queen's most trusted handmaiden...a whisper so soft that it took all her inhuman hearing to catch it.

_God's-child. _

There are always whispers, when it comes to things humans do not understand. Lady Rumor is easily started, and runs far and fast.

_Wings are all very well, but words fly farther and faster than even them, _Sigama had said, when she asked why he never flew. _Three humans might see one miracle, but three thousand will believe it. _

The queen discouraged the rumors. The king only laughed at them, and only Lilli had even mentioned it, with the wide-eyed belief of a child still ready to believe in miracles. The other handmaidens only smiled and shook their heads. But Aia had listened raptly.

_They say the queen was so beautiful the gods themselves noticed. _

The wool threads apart in her fingers. Aia carefully tugs the comb through one final time, twines it into a neat bundle, and sets it back in the basket. Her mind pieces the rumors together with the same deliberate care.

_They say the gods noticed. _

And the youngest son, who no one has ever seen and who they only speak about in whispers…

_God's-child. _

Aia rises to her feet. Brisa and Karuwa look at her curiously as she smooths her skirts out and sets the basket of carded wool at their feet. "I'm going out for some fresh air," she murmurs.

She passes Lilli in the doorway. The other girl's skirts are ruffled, a stray wisp of dark hair escaping from her headscarf. Her cheeks are flushed. She dodges Aia's gaze guiltily and hurries past. Aia files that away for later thought, but she's too preoccupied to give it much attention. The puzzle pieces are dancing in her mind.

It's almost evening. Laomedon will be out on the walltop, surveying the weather with his ship captain. With the seasons changing, there might not be enough time for one last expedition before the winter storms set in.

She ducks past the curtain shading the tower entrance and steps into the fading sunlight. The light is still strong enough to make her eyes water; her skin prickles uncomfortably. She risks a quick glance up.

The skies are a soft cloudy blue. Far out over the endless sea, the horizon is tinged with grey. Aia smiles. There will be no more expeditions this year. Laomedon will be disappointed. The captain will be going to inform the crew, and the prince will be heading back to his chambers to tell the king. She can catch him on the way.

He'll want wine. And once he's had a drink or two, then she can ask him about his little brother. If she's careful, and clever, she'll know the truth behind the rumors.

Anticipation quickens her heartbeat. The name dances through her mind again.

_Ganymede_.

The vision comes sweeping in like the sea breeze, carrying the first winter chill. The sky turns scarlet.

She doesn't feel her knees hit the stone, or hear the voice that cries out her name. The world has been engulfed in light.

Unconscious, she smiles.


End file.
